Welcome to Gaia! ::

Face pale except for an angry flush and suspiciously bright eyes, America answered the door with a tight smile. "C'mon in, hun. Got some broth and tea and some of the pink stuff. If you're up for it later I'll upgrade you to toast and bananas."

The broken remains of her phone were in a plastic baggie on the counter, ready to take to the techs tomorrow for repair and a lecture on how she'd been doing so well since transferring to Moon.

With a huff of watery laughter, America moved to ladle him a bowl from the pot. "Folks in the know tend to check who's been working the kitchen duty. There's a few you gotta watch out for but Scotland's a real menace around anything involving meat. He does taxidermy s**t, you know? But isn't exactly tidy about it." Setting the bowl in front of Dawson, she poured him some tea and a glass of water.

"Drink much as you can without it making you feel sick again, gotta replenish all your business."

Eventually she took a seat with her own mug of tea. She didn't often drink the hot kind and much preferred hot cocoa, but it felt good to her hand and the bitter suited her mood well enough.

The comment was given a wry smile, "Ain't much harder on apiece of tech than a hunter with a temper. Not my first, probably won't be my last." She took a sip of her tea, "First couple were because of Lawr. He likes people to call him Jan, but that's just because he's a conman. People like that are always more comfortable using other people's names."

Putting down the mug, she gave Dawson a firm look in the eye, "I've always been truthful, and I've never hidden what he is. I shout it from the rooftops, I put ******** flyers up on the bulletin board, Dawson. Nobody listened to me then and now someone else is hurt and I'm expected to be nice and quiet and discrete about it." America's voice shook as she talked.

"How many people do I gotta tell my story to before folks take it seriously? Are you gonna really watch out for him? Or are you gonna wait for Horace to say he wants you to? If I tell you everything will you believe me or just tell me oh, it's a he/said she said petty exes thing?"

Jaw tightening she inhaled once, then twice, and found enough composure to start. "Okay, okay I'll start from the beginning. And a lot's on twitter, way far back but it's there, okay." Another breath and a sip of her drink, throat suddenly dry, "I knew him first as Jan, just like everybody else. And I knew he was a conman because he offered to help Harrison be cured of his gay and he offered to talk to my dead mother for me. For money of course. Cept the dead don't work that way, and who you wanna bang don't either, so we both saw what he was and no harm came of it then. We fought and sniped a lot on Twitter, he like calling me a harlot and slut and all that. Real rootin' tootin' holy roller of a cowboy." She offered Dawson a wry grin but there was no humor in it.

"There were a crazy week long storm last year, and it flooded the basement right quick. Turns out this place didn't have any weather other than fog for a long a** time because of some shields, but with those gone everything that could spring a leak did. A met a guy, older and a bit of a sleaze, but a fun sort. We had sex and went our ways and the next time I'm on Twitter Jan starts bragging about how he gardened my flower."

America rolled her eyes, "So the start isn't great but it's not something to worry about. Like, he just seemed like a conniving a*****e for awhile."

She choked a little on her drink at the mention of Taym and shot Dawson a pained look, "Honey that's a whole 'nother story, and a long one at that. But no, we were friends though, so he got a front row seat to my half and his own as well." Thinking about it had her growing grim once more. "Me n'Jan had sex a couple times after that, once was purely the hateful sort, the other was...me using him to cope with something I hadn't been prepared for. There was a situation with the pod rooms once when I had duty, two of the sleepers died 'cause of a malfunxtion and he was next on shift. We both got dimissed and he followed me trying to goad me, and eventually he succeeded after telling me I should go visit my daddy. Tried to choke him out then and there. He'd told me before that he'd visited his daughter. Eventually I'd find out his daughter died, and likely 'cause of that visit. We kept on fighting and sniping over Twitter and I started getting a bit uneasy, he seemed to be everywhere all the time and on my shifts. I found out he watched me while I slept. And even then I wasn't afraid for me so much as..."

A huge sigh, "He was going to be Taym's mission partner for months in the Sahara. Just him and Taym." The girl's mouth flattened into a thin line. "One night he'd asked me for a spar, just the two of us, in the middle of the night. I agreed, but told him it wouldn't be with weapons. I don't want to fight a fellow hunter when I'm angry with them, leads to too much bad s**t. Of course he summoned, but I wanted to prove I was better than that, that he couldn't force me to break with my principles. I was stupid," she stated flatly. "He won. And then he dragged me off the fields, choked me until I passed out, and while I was unconscious, he carved into me. When I woke up it was with..."

Taking Dawson's hand she guided it to just below her collar bone, the top of the raised scar underneath the brilliance of the tattoo, so clean and precise, of a treble clef. "...his mark. Guess he has a thing for music notes."

She held his hand in both of hers, and something in her relaxed a bit at the contact. With a small sharp nod, more to herself than him, America went on, "Caelius found out about the spar, and he thought that me n'Jan were in some sort of...I don't know, conspiracy together. That I'd purposely killed the sleepers and he helped or something. I was less than an inch from getting my head chopped off when my own lead back then, Allan, saved me. Jan didn't have anybody like that so he was like banished to the arctic. But he didn't stay long. Next I saw him he was in the hospital. And then after that, he was waiting for me outside my door, missing a hand. He told me they'd given him a choice, lose the hand or be forced to stay away from me. He gave up his hand."

After this she made several starts to continue and found she couldn't until finally she did. "He also told me he'd make sure Taym fell into trouble unless I let him into my room, and what he wanted in there was pretty clear." She looked away but then, with a determined frown, turned back to meet Dawson square in the eye. "I said no. And the next day they were shipped out. He betrayed Taym to some horsemen in the desert and pretended that one of those clones was the real thing. Taym was kept captive for weeks, and his final texts to me were so desperate, Dawson," and it's here that her voice broke. "He never could bring himself to ask me for anything but here he begged. He got himself out of it in the end but..." She couldn't finish the thought, that she still regretted saying no, because it felt wrong, even if it was still there in her, she knew it was wrong.

"He was a mess when he got back and Lawrence was fit and happy as anything, even got a promotion out of it. He got a promotion off of someone I love's torture and misery!"

The outburst was brief, and she heaved a big sigh, and went on, voice lower, "He didn't stop stalking me. There was this dream game we all got sucked into and I saw some of his fantasies and nightmares and memories. He was born with some sorta mental defect. Can't feel emotions at all, gets stuck in repeating the same things over and over. He was born empty, and he filled it with money. It being the root of all evil? Well, pretty accurate with him. He doesn't know how to love, or feel fear, he can't even hate. But he can use people and he can obsess over things, and so that's what he does. I saw him as a kid, but I saw him ready to kill his own son, Mikael, and the boy's mother before someone stopped him. He's a bad person without limits and he's crazy. Bonafide."

A pause, "And then Horace woke up."

"Lawrence got to him first. And Horace, well, maybe he's not stupid in everyway, but he was stupid over Lawrence, couldn't have known him very long. First time I see him, it's on the sparring field, and as soon as he hears my name I think somebody must be talking s**t. And I was right, he tells me that I'm pretty and that I'm also a slanderer and a bully. So that was a our great start. So I told him that I'm truthful and anyone calling me out for slander just doesn't liike the truth. He didn't believe me. Didn't even know what I'd said or done but he was set. Pissed me off enough to try not to bother with it anymore, to just ignore the ******** trainwreck waiting to happen, 'cause he'd been warned."

She didn't look happy or proud about what she was saying, "But I couldn't. Just, I don't like Horace. I don't think I should be expected to like or even respect a person who treated me that way and the way he's treated me since. So I don't like it, and I've made it plain. And I'd get on him, about stupid and gullible he was being and pointing out the s**t that Lawrence said and did. So maybe that didn't ******** help convince him, except the real issue was and maybe still is, that he ********, she looked to the ceiling, "He was fixed real hard on the fact that me n'Lawrence have a past. Like we're exes that just don't like each other. Like I'm....someone to be jealous of. All that s**t Lawrence put me through, he acted like it was just me being an unpleasant ex. I sent him a screencap of a creepy message Lawrence sent me and his first thought is I'm trying to make him jealous. I got so mad and fed up a sent him a bunch more, all the ones right up to the start of things, and finally he gets it. Finally!"

Her hands shake around his, "Few days later, we rescue him from a ******** cave, where Lawrence has tied him up and gagged him. Left him there with a circle carved into his chest and a broken finger. Soon as Lawrence shows back up at the cave, you know the first thing out of Horace's mouth were? Don't hurt him."

America bites her lip and adds, "When we brought him to the doctor fella, Lawrence said it was consensual. That Horace had asked to be treated like me. I don't know if it's bullshit or not, but seeing Horace looking like he's likely to keep mooning over the man if Twitter is anything to go by just...he has a second chance. I don't want to be one of two ******** people yelling at him on the sidelines that he's going to get hurt when all his ******** friends should know by now. He does need someone to watch over him, and he doesn't listen to me, so if you like him, watch over him because I'm so ******** tired just thinking about the next time Lawrence plays this game with me. I'm tired of my history with him being dismissed and passed over like it's just some regular old drama, ********> let's talk about tv-shows now and get the awkward unpleasantness off our dash and out of our minds. HE ACTS LIKE MY BOYFRIEND IS A STALKER KNOWING THAT LAWRENCE ACTUALLY DID THAT TO ME! I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THAT WITH A ********> SMILE AND OH POOR YOU'S!"

The composure was gone, totally and completely and it wasn't a gentle weeping but a big ugly cry. "I'm so tired of feeling responsible for first Lawrence and now this dumbshit kid who I can't stand while everyone else politely pretends everything's ******** fine!"