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 Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:47 pm
To say Rep was upset was an understatement. Harrison had stressed that it wasn't his concern and maybe it shouldn't have been, but it didn't calm him down. There was something intolerable about having people flirt with the other man as if it was ******** open season. It wasn't acceptable, they'd backed off when they were all an item but now it was a ******** swarm.
He tried to stay cool, simply tossing Jordan a text that said nothing other than "Lets spar, training grounds, 10 mins." And hoped it sounded casual, businesslike, not tense or stressed.
He'd been really, really stressed of late, even before twitter. He needed an outlet and this was probably as good as any.
Getting to the training fields early, he waited, pacing up and down in that caged animal sort of way he often did when his anxiety levels passed an acceptable threshold.
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 5:11 pm
Jordan still carried some of the irritable, prickly tension from the conversation, a combination of pleasure over the possessive edge in Rep's words, irritation over being argued over, the whole complicated tangle of wanting to be claimed and holding himself apart, of the low edge of bitterness that still lay underneath everything else. Seeing Rep pacing as Jordan approached told him immediately that Rep was definitely upset, and that this was going to be personal; not that sparring was ever not personal between them, but there was a lot bound up in this, and they hadn't fought like this for a long time.
He came to a halt to the side of the path that Rep was pacing into the grass, and said, simply and bluntly, "I'm here."
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Baneful rolled 1 20-sided dice:
18
Total: 18 (1-20)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:14 am
The look Rep shot Jordan was detached and cold, not really looking at him but instead somewhere through him. It usually meant that somehow he was compartmentalizing to cope with something and he was, telling himself that Jordan had been the one flirting, that he was only out to hurt him. It was cruel and he didn't understand the whys. But he understood his anger and the desire to touch the other man, and right now that was about all that ******** mattered.
"Good." he said.
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prolixity rolled 1 20-sided dice:
17
Total: 17 (1-20)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 5:32 am
The look Rep gave him was cold, not seeing him but something else, something that Rep had built to put in his place, a look painfully too familiar. Jordan's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Is there a problem?" he asked, and summoned Ferros. They were here for a spar, and he didn't feel like being unprepared if Rep decided to take a swing at whatever mental image he had built to superimpose on Jordan. Ferros hissed softly, agitated, worried, excited; hungry, hungry and wanting to touch just as much as his human did.
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
9, 7
Total: 16 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 9:03 am
"No." Rep lied. "Nae problem. I just wanted to spar you, last I checked that was allowed." But it was obvious in the tension visible in Rep's posture that there was a problem he wasn't admitting out loud and that he would likely fervently deny.
"Just call it training." he said and summoned Tracey, the sleek axe coalescing like a hole in the world. The fallen angel still exulted in the removal of the cuff, and even with Marie siphoning away his fear, needed the freedom to exist outside his totem form, to even taste the kiss of strikes, to exert some change in the world outside.
He was glad to be but nevertheless bitter about the fact that he would not get to taste Ferros, that the barriers still existed between them and that no doubt this encounter would be brief, Jordan and Rep were not weak or capable of too much restraint.
HP: 60/60
DMG: 10
Charge: N/A
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prolixity rolled 2 12-sided dice:
10, 5
Total: 15 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 9:38 am
There was a problem, and it was one Rep didn't want to talk about. "Been a while," Jordan answered, "too long," and thought of wire-taught tensions that neither quite about living nor quite about dying. Training, and after the conversation they'd had and half not had, it wasn't hard to guess at what might be wrong.
Tracey coalesced into reality and Rep swung, a single motion. Jordan brought Ferros up in an underhand arc to meet the swing, iron sparking and sliding on shadowy metal and then jolting off and inward, and the axe blade bit into Jordan's shoulder as Ferros made contact with the softer resistance of flesh.
Jordan spun away with a hiss, moved back and to the side, circling and watching for an opening almost without having to think about it. "I'm not going to stop sparring the hatchlings," he said, more irritated than defensive.
HP: 50/60
Dmg: 9
Charge: 1/3
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
6, 4
Total: 10 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 9:53 am
As the weapons met, the sound was grimly satisfying to Rep, steel on steel. He'd forgotten how it felt, Ferros' bulk sending a jolt of pain up his arms as for a moment he became a shock absorber. Had it not been for his shield he knew it would have broken every flimsy human bone in his arm. The instant where both weapons slid and grated free was as painful as it was thrilling, the bite of Tracey against Jordan's shoulder and shield almost tender in its comparative ease, but with it of course came Ferros whose crushing strikes were the opposite of sharp but no less punishing, connecting with his own shoulder hard enough to make him reel.
Recovering from his brief stagger, he brought Tracey back and around to his side, backing up once more, mirroring Jordan's motions out of sheer reflex, they had always both been mid-range fighters out of necessity. "Aye of course you ******** aren't." he snarled as he focused on the pain, feeling more alive than he had in some time, only wishing that in addition to it he could feel the steady almost climactic build of amassing fear.
"That was one of the first ******** places you undermined me you know." Rep said, because there was something about fighting that made it easier to slice down to the quick of things. "I used to do it. I used to get them and teach them s**t. But you made it your job. And you were always more likeable. You didn't even ask me to ******** help." There were more ways than simply weapons to fight, he thought.
Swiping out again, he cleaved the axe diagonally, aiming for the same spot he'd just struck moments before simply out of spite. "But that's no the ******** problem here."
HP: 51/60
DMG: 4
Charge: N/A
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prolixity rolled 2 12-sided dice:
4, 10
Total: 14 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 10:09 am
"Undermined you, what the hell," Jordan growled, the irritation spiking closer to anger. "That was never what it was about. I teach because I like to and because it's something I can do, a way I can be more than front-line cannon fodder. I didn't ask you to help, but I never asked you to stop. It's not like it's something only one person can do." He moved, shifting his weight forward to balance himself over the balls of his feet as he brought Ferros back in the beginning of a sweeping swing. "Me teaching them was never about you."
Tracey swept in and bit into the same spot, a new flare of bright-edged pain; Jordan moved through the strike and brought Ferros forward and around again, aiming for Rep's side. "Okay," he said through gritted teeth, "that's not the ******** problem. So let's see, what else? Someone talking to me? Or is it the flirting thing? That might actually mean something if it was two-sided, but I'm not looking, remember?"
HP: 46/60
Dmg: 8
Charge: 2/3
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
3, 6
Total: 9 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 10:28 am
"Aye, so you say. It wasn't what it was about. Maybe it ******** wasn't, but you didn't think for even a ******** second about how I might feel about it. That was always what ******** happened." Tracey bit and it was good but not enough, never enough. He wanted to hurt Jordan on a level that went beyond the irritation he bore everyone else. He'd gotten hurt by the man in front of him, he'd let him get close and now letting him get away meant that every ******** time anyone looked at him, flirted with him, saw him as ******** fair game it was going to make him feel sick and upset, it was going to hurt him every ******** time over and over again.
That was not ******** okay.
It wasn't all Jordan's fault though, and that was why when Ferros retaliated he was almost glad when he wasn't quick enough to redirect the swing. Instead it hit him full on the side, enough to send him back from the other man, this time enough to make him hiss through his teeth as some of the air was knocked out of his lungs, the pain radiating even to the other side of his body entirely.
He clenched his fists around the weapon until his knuckles stood out white against his skin. "No ******** looking you say, but you still ******** let them flirt, you still basked in it. That's just a ******** step away from letting them touch you."
His follow-up swipe was off-target, too much rage behind it and not enough actual concentration, he was fighting sloppy and emotionally and it was beginning to show.
HP: 43/60
DMG: 3
Charge: N/A
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prolixity rolled 2 12-sided dice:
8, 9
Total: 17 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 10:40 am
"If I never did anything that might possibly upset you, I'd never do anything," Jordan ground out, exasperated and stung by the accusation. You never told me, he didn't say, because that was almost a fair thing to talk about with Harrison, about how badly communication had broken down between them, but Rep was Rep and getting any kind of understanding of what upset him meant stumbling blindly into it and then dragging it out, feeling it out, fighting the walls and the thorns that surrounded every wound the other man had ever received. Jordan refused to apologize for this one; he had done nothing wrong, and he would not bare his throat over it. "That doesn't mean I never think of you."
Rep was angry, getting sloppy. The return swipe barely touched Jordan; he swung his open left palm at the flat of Tracey's blade, aiming to knock it away. There were only two weapons against whom Ferros would allow that. He brought Ferros up and over in the same motion, his eyes narrowing. He was angry now, the bottled hurt and conflict bubbling up, but he remembered learning that, feeling that, using that. That it hadn't quite been him who'd had that memory didn't matter. He drove the furious energy into a calm, still focus, and brought Ferros down with power behind the strike.
"I let them flirt," he answered, "because it doesn't mean anything to me. Not from them. I don't want their hands on me, or anything else."
HP: 43/60
Dmg: 11
Charge: 3/3
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
3, 10
Total: 13 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:06 am
"Then just don't do the s**t that will. Forget the possibles." Because to Rep it seemed simple and straightforward, all people needed to do was think about him when they made ******** choices and he wouldn't get angry or hurt. But of course very few people ever ******** did, even those people who were supposed to love him. "And I never said you didn't, just sometimes you don't and its usually when you don't that s**t like this happens." s**t like him getting hurt and having to hide it behind a wall of anger and hatred that didn't go all the way down to the roots, that he had to convince himself of lest it hurt all the more.
His ******** up cost him, Tracey hissing in fury as Jordan touched his bare steel. He too was deeply deeply proud, was bitter about the break-up and still not sure how he felt about anything. He resented contact deeply, aware of Marie at all times and reminded that he could not truly feel Ferros, that he was in a fear sense, completely silent. Anything he wanted as much as this was a weakness and as much as he'd hoped he would simply forget Ferros over time the way he'd forgotten everything else, he had not. Every night he was made human by dreams, and every night he was aware of the gap his human - his alternate self - felt in every waking moment.
Rep went down this time from the swing, hitting the ground as Ferros' weight was too much for his legs to take, brought to his knees before the other man with another hiss of agony.
But he didn't stay down for long, this time up and on his feet, leaping at Jordan as he closed the distance between them, twisting his fist in the other man's shirt and pulling him close as he could manage, flush up against him, his other hand holding Tracey loosely as he looked right into Jordan's eyes. "Its ******** frustrating watching them." he hissed. "I don't like them ******** imagining, coveting what is ******** mine."
He leaned in close, for a lingering second looking like he was considering a kiss before abruptly and without warning, giving a whole other kind of kiss, the Glasgow sort as he forcefully headbutted the other man.
"OR SHOULD BE."
HP: 32/60
DMG: 8
Charge: N/A
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prolixity rolled 2 12-sided dice:
12, 5
Total: 17 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:39 am
Jordan made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a growl, feeling again the frustrated ache of the space between them, a space that was sometimes barely a breath wide, effortless to reach across, sometimes a chasm that kept them miles apart. He had no answer to give to the suggestion, the demand; denying it would be less than truthful and Rep wouldn't believe him, and he wouldn't make promises that were impossible. I'll try would no better than I'm going to ******** up, and it was a given, anyway.
And then Rep was right there, one hand fisted into Jordan's shirt and pulling him close, too close and possessive, and Jordan forgot to breathe for a moment, aggression and anger transforming in an instant to something else closely related. The headbutt was a painful surprise. Jordan's head snapped back, and he snarled through the dizzying shock of pain. The shield kept anything from breaking, but it still hurt like hell. He twisted free of the hold and brought one leg up to plant his boot in Rep's stomach, shoving him back with a kick and following the motion by snapping back around to slash the end of Ferros's handle across Rep's chest. <********," he growled. "You a*****e. It doesn't ******** matter what they want, I made a promise that I've ******** kept, even if I'm not wearing it!"
HP: 35/60
Dmg: 11
Charge: 3/3
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
12, 3
Total: 15 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 12:16 pm
Rep fell back onto his back as Jordan kicked him away and for a breathless moment laughed, a wheezy high pitched sound. The sweeping sting across his chest took his attention off of the other myriad aches and pains which were getting well and truly settled into his body and tangling with the raw emotions that raged like wildfire in him.
Tracey hissed, fangs bared in Rep's thoughts. He did, flipping himself onto hands and knees - and ******** his knees hurt - before standing again, the axe dragged behind him on the ground as he got up a run and leapt far higher than any normal human could have, coming back down with all the weight of the axe behind him, but instead of hitting Jordan with Tracey, the blade crashed into the ground behind him and slinging his legs around the other man - or trying, at least - sought to pin him to the ground with all the weight and force he could muster.
HP: 21/60
DMG: 9
Charge: N/A
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prolixity rolled 2 12-sided dice:
10, 8
Total: 18 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 12:56 pm
Though he'd braced for it as best he could, jamming the hammer's head against the ground and holding tight, Rep's leap carried all of Tracey's mass and his own, and Jordan had no bond with the axe to cushion the impact of a weight nobody but Rep could carry. The flying leap brought them both to the ground and ripped Jordan's hand away from Ferros's handle. He twisted and snarled, brought his elbow up hard into Rep's chest, followed it up with a punch that described a short, snapping arc against Rep's jaw.
Jordan, Ferros growled. The overflowing heat of a waiting charge simmered barely restrained within the weapon.
No, Jordan snapped, and underneath the word was the certainty that he would push, desummon before he used a charge in this fight; Ferros rumbled with frustrated worry, but yielded.
HP: 24/60
Dmg: 12
Charge: 3/3
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Baneful rolled 2 12-sided dice:
7, 11
Total: 18 (2-24)
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 1:26 pm
The elbow was well-aimed and once again Rep found himself disabled by the air being rattled out of his own lungs, able to do nothing but take the brunt of the punch to his jaw. He would have careened right back off of the other man if he hadn't instinctively held onto his shirt with both hands, even in the act of being struck instinctively holding on for security and safety. Nevertheless it was enough to bite a deep gash in his lip as his teeth clipped together and he spat blood onto Jordan's chest as he regained his balance, straddling him but under no delusion of control, Jordan still had plenty of fight in him and Rep's own shield was limping along ******** wards, he thought. No ******** satisfaction, not really, the pain was dulled, blunted and not sharp enough, he wanted and deserved a lot ******** more. He felt cockblocked by the organization and not for the first time either.
"Why do you ******** keep it?" he snarled, his voice ragged with emotion. "Why can't you just." And it was his turn to let go of Tracey to punch with both hands into the figure beneath him, punching and punching as often as he could, forgetting to breathe, forgetting anything but the ********: 9/60
DMG: 12
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