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 Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:07 pm
Melvin wasn't sure when he wanted to talk to Rep again. The past few days had been exhausting beyond belief, and he still felt rattled by everything that had been throw around and out of his comfort zone. Rebuilding and just wrapping his head around a few other things was all he could do, and cling back to a routine that provided some stability. It was a report that Rep was in the Infirmary with some rather serious wounds that kicked aside any idea of just postponing a talk to seeing the man. It was just rude not to, and he liked to see the damage for himself every time someone he knew got admitted in the Infirmary.
As expected Jordan was already there, something he wasn't all too keen on addressing, but it seemed he got the point and left them both a moment as he stood there, a bag in one hand and the other in his pocket. When the door closed behind him, Melvin stepped in closer to set the bag down.It certainly looked serious, but you couldn't usually tell how bad something was under bandages and with how Fear worked.
"Hey......how are you doing?" He asked, not even sure Rep was awake.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:16 pm
Rep - unfortunately at least as far as he was concerned - was indeed awake. There was only so long that drugs could keep him under, especially with the increased resistance innate to all weapons. It was dark, and it was wretched, and people had been saying the first day he might lose an eye. They'd stopped saying that, but he didn't know if it was because things had gotten worse and they didn't want to tell him, or that Tracey had managed to fix it.
us.>
He was scared, and it was about more than the future. With his eyes bandaged there was darkness everywhere and there was a deep and primal terror in being unable to see. The nearest he could relate it to was when he showered alone that instant where he closed his eyes had to be as short as possible because of the very real fear when he opened them there would be a creature, something, near his face. Like this he couldn't open his eyes, he was helpless and dependent.
When he heard the click of the door closing he flinched, sitting up a little straighter even at the protest of all his muscles. His voice was low and careful, his jaw only just mending itself enough to be functional, dislocated in the fight.
"Wh..who's ff..there?" Even the word ******** was effort he couldn't really afford to expend.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:28 pm
When Rep shifted, the Lifer breathed out, both startled and relieved he didn't have to come again and thus make visiting even weirder. It was also very clear from the question that Rep couldn't see even a bit under the bandages and that talking was hard and possibly painful. Melvin couldn't really tell since he couldn't see his facial features to see if it hurt.
This didn't bode well for the Lifer who was often dependent on other people talking more than he did. It made asking questions next to impossible.
"Melvin. I heard you got pretty beat up so I thought I'd check in. Seems talking isn't easy right now for you?" He said that part in hopes it wasn't true and Rep's throat was just dry.
"They said you couldn't really eat or drink much with the bandages so ...sorry, no hot chocolate. I just brought some things of chocolate milk." Treats were the one thing that were always nice to get when in the Infirmary even if it wasn't glamorous things. Basically whatever you could get from the vending machines or steal from the cafeteria. Seeing as Melvin used up his leave, he couldn't go out and get anything either. He couldn't even afford anything anyways.
"I heard Jerry and you got into a spar that went too far." Melvin reached out, trying to be quiet as he picked up the patient clipboard front the front of the bed.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:59 pm
Rep fell silent as Melvin announced himself, glad like this his expression was relatively unreadable. "No." he said, with a gentleness in his tone almost never present. "Its no." Every single movement of his jaw was like someone stabbing knives up under his skull and twisting them.
Even as terrible as he felt there was immediate suspicion at the blonde man bringing him gifts. His mind was still very much on something else entirely and placatory gestures didn't seem to distract him.
"Thanks." he said with that same carefulness. "And no, he tried to murder me after a spar."
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:18 pm
"Murder you? I...didn't think Jerry was the type. I don't know him as well as some people, but he seemed more skittish and unsure of himself then to get so upset as to try and kill someone." Melvin set the clipboard back where it belonged as softly as he could to keep the sound of metal from being heard and then moved over to sit where Jordan no doubt had been sitting.
"Is he still upset from the bar thing or just....well.......him?" Melvin looked up, but when he saw a face full of bandages he once again was reminded that Rep wasn't going to be as chatty as usual.
"You don't have to answer that. I'll just ...see what's wrong later." Rep had his own s**t to deal with considering his face was covered.
It was a bit quiet again, and Melvin occupied himself for a few seconds thinking things over. He'd wanted to talk to Rep for a reason but with his injuries, it seemed wrong to bring more worries on him when the guy had a busted face to deal with.
"A lot of people seem to be on edge past spars. We'll need more people on duty than just Harrison if this keeps up." Having people on training grounds duty seemed like a good thing to bring up since people monitoring themselves wasn't working.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:36 pm
"He's just crazy." Rep said, cold and distant. He'd thought he was his friend, he'd sat with him with Harrison, he'd taken him drinking - he was judgemental but he was that way with all those he considered his friends - those closer to him felt the sharpest brunt of his standards. "I don't know why he wanted to kill me." he took a low shivering breath. "I think he might still have, if I don't see again." There was no room for a blind hunter in Sun, or anywhere.
He fell quiet too, listening to Melvin thoughtfully. People sucked and didn't know how to spar, himself ******** included.
But there were other things more important than sparring.
"What happened with Rin?" he said, slowly, carefully and as loud as he dared so Melvin wouldn't miss it.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:55 pm
Well one of them was bound to bring up the subject. It was just better Rep did, though with someone not wanting to focus on his own potential lack of eyesight, who could blame him? Melvin wasn't about to buffer any blows by saying it wasn't a possibility. There were plenty of hunters missing one thing or another, Rin and Lance coming to mind. If anything, that should have been a indication that there was some place still - though considering Rep was all about beating the s**t out of everything, not one he probably would enjoy.
He doubted this conversation would give him warm fuzzies though.
With the luxury of Rep not seeing, Melvin could move his hands without it being watched or noticed, and he took that little freedom as he thought about it. "We talked. She said her side of things, I said mine. The only way she'd bother even looking at me is if we were together.....so............"
He took off one glove, inspecting his nails a moment as he thought about the phantom feel of skin upon it. "....she was ready to move on before I showed up at her door. You were right to say she was strong." Strong enough that she entertained the possibility to move past Melvin and just put him outside of it. He still wondered if he should have just let her shut the door on him and walked off.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:22 pm
Rep was almost grateful for the excuse not to speak, normally chatty, lately there were just a lot of reasons not to say anything at all. The so dragged out into silence and laid the atmosphere heavy with any number of nightmare scenarios. To rep it was the equivalent of hearing that he was insufficient as a friend, that he hadn't met some unwritten standard, like having tits. Rin in pursuing Melvin had tipped the balance of friendship, there was no longer a bros before hos policy. It was just a bro and his ho.
It made it a hundred times worse that he had held a hand in all of it, he'd played dumb matchmaker, obliviously carrying everyone else's emotional burdens only for them to go off and hook up as a consequence, a world of intimacy and closeness that was off limits for him. Clearly Melvin hadn't had any issues touching Rin, or throwing up as a result either.
"She's strong, but she wasn't ready to move on." he said with a shallow sigh. "If you believed her bravado and that front she puts up you are dumber than I thought. She doesn't just drop people like a bad habit." He felt like he was case in point of that.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:34 pm
"I wouldn't say I'm dumb, but not as perceptive as to what people think about me as I used to." His confidence in that department had been stomped to the ground. "As for bad habits, you seemed pretty willing to do that. Rin barely even said much to you for you to come over to meet me. With your long history of friendship and more...........you seemed to think the worst."
He wondered.
"You said I hurt people without meaning to. Everyone does that. Are you waiting for me to cross the line of going too far or have I don't that too many times already and you're just keeping tabs?" Where did Rep's own tolerance for him meet it's end. Rin already gave him her limit, and he had surrendered to it. Rep on the other hand had said he went around hunting people, that he could believe he could crush a person's personality to give up, and yet he still talked to him. "If I said that Rin and I didn't make up and she worse off, would you still be my friend then?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:46 pm
"She said a lot to me." Rep said in correction to Melvin's comment. The tried to ignore the tug of old raw panic at the way he'd found her in the jungle and how startled he'd been to see her laid so low. "I came to see you because I was scared." His need to be frugal with words was difficult. Melvin had been the only way he could think of to fix Rin at the time and he'd been that ******** useless kid again pleading with someone to fix what was broken.
He took a shallow breath, as calming as he could manage. "I don't have a line. You can do what you want to her, or to me." It was a horrible thing to admit, and any other time he'd have guarded the simple fact as fiercely as a wild animal, but right now he was in pain and wasn't even close to thinking straight. "The only time I stop being someone's ******** friend is when they don't want me to be it any longer."
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:56 pm
He just looked at Rep, or well, his lips since that was the only thing that was going to give anything in the way of expression, and just smiled. "Some people would say that's a really shitty friendship." To be able to abuse and harm as much as they pleased as long as they still wanted that person around. It pressed a bit too close to Melvin, who was seeing Rin on some sort of condition to clear things up, but had also allowed something to happen despite his own worries and fears all because the alternative of nothing wasn't something he wanted.
But Rep had been scared. Again, it bothered him how open Rep was to admit that.
"What were scared of?" For trying not to ask too many questions, he was making Rep say a lot. "I find it a bit hard to believe a guy who could crush my skull in would be scared. You didn't even flinch when a polar bear was trying to eat my head." Should Melvin theorize?
"Were you afraid that Rin wouldn't take care of herself anymore?" He had said that Rin wasn't as strong as she let on and he had rushed over to see Melvin because she wasn't taking care of herself.
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:43 pm
"Some people might be right." he hazarded, maybe they were and it was no kind of friendship to have, but it was all he knew. He dealt in absolutes, when he gave of himself he gave entirely, and when other people failed to meet that offering, all he felt was dismay.
Fear though he knew intimately, everything he did stemmed ultimately from fear, even his ******** job. "If you need to know." he said, never one to deny Melvin an honest answer when he asked for one. "I was scared she might give up on everything and kill herself or let herself die"
It sounded ridiculous, but Melvin hadn't been there, he hadn't saw the state she'd let herself get into emotionally. He'd thought it was ridiculous too that anything could ever happen to his mother.
"You can't fight that with a big axe."
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:55 pm
That statement froze his insides, and he felt a rushing panic grip him at the thought of it. Rin had been so unstable that, despite Rep not being a person to give a professional opinion on anyone's mental health, knew Rin well enough (maybe better than anyone) to have a honest fear she would off herself. With how the island worked, suicide wasn't a far fetched idea. It happened. People either wanted to crawl back into the pod, or walked into a mission already planning not to come back. Rep had waited to Melvin because he was afraid Rin might not deal.
And that scared Melvin now. His history and reluctance to be with anyone as far as he was agreeing with Rin was not great. If Rin was so unstable, if anything happened (which Melvin knew it would), it would be on him. He said no, and now he was saying yes. Either way, he was somehow agreeing to take a certain degree of responsibility for the welfare of a person he had already know had been in a mental institution and who had been depressed about past friends who no longer associated with her. But this was worse because they went farther than just a friendship to break off.
"No....you can't." And he wasn't a good solution either.
What did he do from here. "And here I was just worried she'd never talk to me again." He paused.
I hurt people.
"...or you."
But it could still happened. If Rin did go too far, would Rep's high tolerance for letting friends who whatever they wanted still hold?
He looked to the man, bandaged and laying there, and wondered. "If Rin is ...unstable and still goes that way sometime in the future, because of things or something I do, would you still not have a line to your friendship? You said ti yourself that I wasn't a great person." Melvin just didn't believe that no one had a boundary to the conditions of who they kept around them. How could you be friends with someone who, in one way or another, caused the death of a person you cared about?
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:06 pm
"Don't worry about me." Rep said, there were enough people who worried about him already, frankly a lot more than he really deserved. Had he been in fine spirits, he might well have told Melvin to ******** off, he thought, told him getting involved with his Rin was out of line, tested how far he could control them both. But right now all of that just seemed far far too much effort.
He didn't want to think about anything happening to Rin. He didn't think about the future when he could humanly avoid it, instead opting to live in the present every single time. He cared about her deeply, valued every glimmer of emotion she showed him, she'd been hurt before so he valued her all the more. Melvin could hurt her, that was a fact, but it wouldn't be intentional, and for Rep it was intention that deep down, made all the ******** difference in the world. Deceitful people he couldn't stand, people who set out with the intention to take advantage of and harm others. Broken people, people who like a wind up toy with a dodgy spring didn't always go in the right direction or bumped into peoples feelings, as long as they set out with an honest destination in mind, he cared about.
"I said you weren't a great person. None of us ******** are. But you mean well, even if you used to tell yourself it was other people's fault, even if you looked down on them. It was just how you were, how you ******** are. You don't want to hurt people." He curled a hand into a fist. "But. As long as someone really needs me, I'll never walk away from them, even if all ******** logic, all sense says I should."
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Posted: Mon Apr 22, 2013 5:25 pm
"You talked to Rin and came to beat my face in because you were scared. I can at least think about you. A bit more worry with what Jerry did though." He said, not taking the tough-guy, I can handle this, statement of not having to worry. He'd worry. He worried about a lot of things. He wouldn't be here if he didn't worry. Maybe worry dictated his life - he wasn't sure anymore.
Rising up, he put back the glove and pressed between his fingers to make sure it was secure.
The fist would feel a gentle weight upon it. Light, but there. "Thanks, for not walking away....and like, everything."
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