pain_train | SANCTUM INBOX

"Jerk!" Wrath laughs as she gets her hair sorted back out. "You better watch it. You'd look super cute with pink hair too."

Huh. No beer for himself? Well, hey. Whatever. "Okay. You can share my orange juice." She tucks the bottle between them. so they can both get to it and it shouldn't fall over.

And then back to sorting the food back out. "Oh, this is awesome." She peeks into another container of fried noodles and yep. That smells like curry. Perfect. She offers the curry over, since there should be enough to share. She's not that hungry. "Okay. So. Hilarious army movie."

Reaching over to poke through the control panel finally yields a promising film titled Demon Marines of Draconis-9. "I think... I wanna say this is like the third movie in this series but the other ones don't count. You just need to know the main character, Terrace Sevrens, has been like... injected with the blood of demons so she's super badass but it means every time she falls in love with someone they get horribly mangled in like three days. So she's been hunting the demons to their home planet and just like burning a swathe of destruction through the galaxy. And then in the last movie her little brother found her and got hurt really bad so she gave him a transfusion, so now he's got awesome demon blood too and can walk through walls. Got that?"

Alright, that’s a thought that’s somewhere between terrifying and hilarious, and thankfully there will never be a chance to ever test that out, because there’s no way in hell he’s ever going to stop shaving his head. Non-negotiable. No amount of incessant wheedling is going to change that. The results would be horrifying, after all.

The flavor of the night is ‘cheap’ and ‘a lot’, because he’s never claimed to really have a taste for anything nice, and frankly with how fast his metabolism works, it’d be way too expensive to try to buy actually decent meals. He’s more used to eating MREs, after all. Everything is pretty protein rich though, he does remember that note, even if he’s not going to bring it up. It’s the little things to help, after all, and pointing any efforts out would be detrimental. Wrath doesn’t need to be babied, after all. Well, maybe goaded into actually eating; the carton is pushed back at her with a raised brow. Not getting out of it that easily.

Her choice in movies is hilariously bad, and he couldn’t approve more. The plot is convoluted, it sounds ridiculous, and he can’t help but snort at how awful it seems like it’s going to be. “Mn. Think that’s up to five right there in not even a minute.”

Somewhere there are horrifying high school class pictures of Maine. If only Wrath knew this and knew where to look. She'd be dead, but she'd die laughing.

Wrath has spent the only 26 years she can remember eating MREs and mess hall food. When she moves out of Orion's, unless some poor bastard moves in with her she'll probably just be buying surplus ready meals by the case and eating those because hey, they're nutritionally balanced, right? So no complaints here. "Huh? Oh, okay. Curry's mine. Well good. I like curry." Fried noodles get pushed his way instead then, and she searches through the bags to locate a plastic spoon and some rice. Because of course the curry needs rice.

Wrath smirks. "Just wait til you see her 'power armor.'" The sarcasm quotes are actually audible as she speaks. "And then just think that her little brother's is even dumber."

And tinier. You know. Armor that doesn't actually cover anything that really should be covered. She gets the movie started. It has a bass-heavy opening credit line and voice-over narration delivered by the main character with just the right amount of drama. But hey, if Maine likes him some tall, dark-skinned, super muscular women, Terrace ought to do just right by him. Wrath's a fan. (Terrace reminds her a bit of the stories she heard about Nomandia, really.)

Edited (decided blonde was boring) 2014-12-27 17:56 (UTC)

Considering that they’re an entire universe away, everyone is thankfully spared from those horrors. Small favors.

But really, cooking is overrated; mess hall food and mres are so much easier than having to figure out how to actually do things. And premade meals and takeout can easily supplement those when the former aren’t available. He can understand her logic entirely.

Food though, food is important, and it’s still important that she’s eating, but for as much as he’s all about making sure that Wrath is at least making attempts to stay healthy, he’s also selfish and yes, those noodles are definitely going to be gone rather quickly. After he’s certain she’s eaten, though.

There’s a visible cringe at the mention of power armor, because no, power armor is what he used to live in, and there’s no way that the media can accurately portray what it’s like to be stuck inside a metallic alloy suit for three weeks at a time. It’s not pretty, no one would want to see that in a movie.

Whatever, bad movies are great, and the less realistic and more terrible they are, the better. He can definitely dig the main character, if that’s not evident by his raised brow and smirk, regardless of how terrible the armor is. “She gets shot once, she’s probably going to bleed out, demon blood or no.”

She can dream, Maine. She can dream.

Wrath does eat, not as fast as Maine, but maybe she was hungry after all. She'll polish off that curry pretty quickly, and then move along to whatever is next. Some kind of fried protein in sauce.

Wrath nudges him with her elbow lightly. "I know, right? You should see the silly things they do with guns too, it's awesome. And the demolitions are just silly." Yeah, they kind of ignore all of the sweat and dirt and blood that doesn't look sexy or dramatic. "But hey demon blood fixes everything right? Or something."

She leans against Maine a little as the movie gets started, as long as he doesn't seem to mind too much. It's just... companionable.

“Should be looking into demon blood then, fuck better weapons and shit.” Alright, he can’t help it, that’s too absurd an idea, he has to laugh. And…it feels good to be able to joke around; at least after the tumultuous arrival he’d had, this is pretty much the first chance he’s been able to really relax. Never mind the fact that things had been pretty heavy less than an hour beforehand, he’s steadfastly ignoring that right now.

She’s leaning against him, pressed against his side, and that should set off his issues with space and touch, but there’s no quickening of his pulse, no fight instinct rocketing down his spine, nothing but a slight tightening of his grip on one of the containers. It’s actually weird, weird in the fact that he’s not used to not having a violent reaction. But everything is so casual, and it…it can be good too. That can be okay, he can trust enough for this.

“Assuming she loses the armor at some point?”

Wrath snickers. "We'll go hunt down some demons and you can squeeze them like oranges." It's hilarious. "Tall glass of demon juice and you're ready for the day."

It's just good to be able to relax after the heavy subject she'd covered before. And maybe she should have pushed Maine more, but she really hated pushing people unless she felt like they really needed it. This is good. Things don't happen all at once, even if she feels kind of impatient at times.

And it feels like something important has happened, considering she's leaning against Maine and he's letting her. It's nice. She hasn't gotten to spend a lot of time with people like this, not that she can remember, and she feels starved for it. So she's grateful that Maine's willing to put up with it. She just keeps leaning against him, still eating her spicy fried protein.

Wrath laughs. "Well of course." Smirk. "And so does her brother. At the same time. They even manage it without making it too weird." Just. You know. Hilarious and a little sexy in the best cheesy action movie tradition. "There's a shower of boiling hot demon blood involved if I remember right."

Alright, that sounds absolutely disgusting, and it’s hilarious; popping heads is all fine and dandy, but there are a few lines even he won’t cross. Drinking pulpy demon? Definitely one of those.

There’s a snort, a toothy grin to go with her smirk, and a very careful elbow in her side, and for all intents and purposes, this is as close to relaxed as he can possibly get. Shitty food, cheesy movie (although he’s very here for the eye candy siblings), and good company. Friend. It’s a strange word, feels strange to parse over in his head, but it fits. He shifts a bit on the couch, letting her lean a bit more comfortably, and yeah, that seems to be okay. He could maybe get used to this. Funny, how such little things are so hard. Violence, sex, all par for the course, but companionship? Still difficult.

He mutters something about blood being awful for showering around a mouthful of noodles, but it’s pretty difficult to make out the actual words. Whatever, they’re not too important, especially not when there’s a loud explosion from the holo display, because alright, that’s pretty cool. Explosions? Always good in his book, unless they-

Oh, there’s an incessant noise from his glasses.

Annoying, really. There shouldn’t be anything important going on, he doesn’t really have any other acquaintances (friends, really) that would bother to message him at this time of night, and sure as shit he’s technically off the clock. Really, the urge to ignore whomever is trying to get ahold of him is incredibly high, but the noise won’t stop, and so he regrettably reaches to grab the damn things and figure out what’s going on.

All it takes is a cursory glance at his messages. Tension bleeds back into him, evident in the way his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow ever so slightly. He’s careful to not jostle her too much as he extracts himself form the couch, and there’s a mumbled apology as he rises. Everything is set down, and there’s a casual wave, “back in a moment.”

With that, he exits Orion’s apartment, and it’s certainly more than a moment; nearly fifteen minutes pass before the door opens again, but he’s true to his word. He offers no explanation as he worms his way back onto the couch, there’s a very faint acrid chemical stench that fades after a moment or two, but then it’s back to steadfastly concentrating on the movie. If he’s a bit quieter than before, he brings no attention to it, “did I miss much?”

"Huh? Sure!" Wrath just pauses the film when Maine gets up. She's seen this one before; she doesn't need to see it again to know what happens, for sure. She occupies herself while Maine is gone by screwing around on her digital painting frame, playing with some ideas for the painting she's going to do for Christine. She might not have actual paints yet, but she can do sketches and play with ideas for what might work once he has some actual space.

Wrath gives him a smile when he gets back, one that becomes puzzled when she catches a whiff of him. She saves her work--sketches of ballerinas--and sets it back aside. "You didn't miss anything. I paused it. Future technology--it's awesome!" She grins at him.

Once Maine's settled back down on the couch, she leans against him again and offers him the bottle of orange juice. "Everything work out?" Since presumably he had some kind of call he needed to answer. It must have been urgent.

The sarcasm is appreciated, and it gets a good natured eye roll from him. Real futuristic shit, here; there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep up, might as well give up now and admit defeat. Okay, he can’t even continue with that train of thought, it’s too ridiculous.

It’s a decent distraction though, lets him deflect; god, it can’t be healthy to push away this much, she’s got to be right about that. But no, he’ll deal with it later, maybe. Perhaps never. He’ll deal with it when he’s able to deal with it. Yeah, that’ll have to do. At least it’s a start, even if he knows he’s lying to himself.

“Mn,” comes the reply, noncommittal enough in its own way. Things are worked out for better or worse, his knuckles kind of hurt, and now he’s back, the couch is fairly comfortable, there’s takeout and movies, and being relaxed was really nice, so he’d kind of like to go back to that. He takes the bottle, doesn’t figure to be polite enough to inquire about a glass and just takes a draw from it before handing it back, shifting a bit so that she’s not pressed up against his shoulder so much as she can lean on his chest, because that has to be better for her back. “Worked out just fine.”

"Okay." Wrath almost doesn't notice, that anything's all that off. Maine is quiet, but Maine's always quiet. And he's still letting her lean against him, which is a big deal. But it's his knuckles that eventually give it away. Wrath likes hands, likes trying to draw them, so she notices things about them.

Which is a little worrying, even if he's acting okay.

Wrath carefully takes his hand, turning it so she can examine it better. The dark red of early bruises--she knows those really well, thanks--and a few little splits in the skin. Definitely different, though; between when he left and when he came back, he must have hit something, really hard. She smooths her hand very lightly over his knuckles and curls her fingers around his. (And that's okay, right? She and North held hands a lot, back when they were just friends. It doesn't have to be more than that or mean anything else. It's just a way of telling someone you're there with them.)

Everything is fine, it’s always fine, and it’s nice that there’s no pushing on the subject. Easy enough to slip back into the casual turn the night has taken, ignore the clones and their fates, and just try to be normal, for fuck’s sake. Whatever normal passes for in this new universe, at least.

But there’s a sharp intake of breath at the sensation of her hand, his gaze immediately hyperfocused on every small movement she makes. The punch had been a rash decision, no logical thought in it at all because it didn’t change the fact that there’s another dead clone, but it had at least helped to purge some of the confusion bubbling in his brain. That should have been it, but Wrath is far more observant than he’d thought, and now there’s a feeling of vulnerability, because the wound is very visible proof that perhaps he’s not quite as fine as he’d like to believe. Fuck.

His hand twitches, he could push her away it wouldn’t be hard. He’s fine. Everything is fine.

His fingers entwine with her’s instead.

She'd be very easy to push away, and she wouldn't fight him on it. She hasn't been friends with Maine that long, after all. And she's already gotten into his personal space a lot tonight.

Wrath already knows that Maine isn't fine, for whatever reason. It's a relief that Maine also knows Maine isn't fine. She links her fingers with his, her other hand stroking the back of his soothingly, avoiding the darker spots of developing bruises.

"It's okay, Maine," she says quietly. To be upset. To feel anything. To hold on. A lot of things.

It’s bullshit, is what it all is. He’s a soldier, killed innumerable people, blew up York, and there’s never been regret for anything. Everything is a casualty of war, it’s a hard fact of life, and lingering on it never makes it any better, so why the fuck is it any different in this place. Why should he care about any of this when there’s work to be done, and there’s work to be done back home. First priority should be getting home.

Getting home. Getting shot. Losing his mind.

It makes him tired, so very tired. Too many revelations in such a short period of time, from people invading his head, to learning his own fate, to the cause of all of his future problems showing up only to dissolve away. Definite bullshit.

His response can’t be heard so much as felt, a deep rumble low in his chest, barely an exhale. Wrath shouldn’t be indulging this, he shouldn’t be indulging it, but he doesn’t move. “Worked out just fine.”

Wrath squeezes his fingers lightly, covering his hand--well, as much of it as she can, he's got much bigger hands than her--with her other firmly for a moment. She looks up and gives him a wry little smile. "You're being dumb, Maine." She has to keep saying that to freelancers. She's starting to really sense a pattern about shit that program did to people, and she's not liking it at all. Or maybe that's just the social atmosphere from whatever century Maine and North and York are from. (Or maybe she's the weird one, who knows.)

But it's not live fire, it's not a distraction from the mission. He can feel bad if bad things have happened, and he doesn't have to pretend it's all okay. It's very obviously not, and he's not fooling her, and he's obviously not fooling himself either.

Wrath tilts her head to rest against his shoulder, something a bit like a hug. "It's okay."

Admittedly, yes, he's being incredibly dumb, and that's putting it lightly. It could be argued that most of his life decisions could be classified as 'dumb'. Military life didn't quite make for the ability to rationalize emotional difficulties in healthy ways, after all. This is all fairly new, difficult, and exhausting, if he was being honest. Really, he'd rather be under live fire any day than have to sort through the demons in his head (thankfully unrelated to the demons in the holo display).

There's a quiet noise of amusement at the thought, and a very minute squeeze back. "Never claimed to be smart."

And then there's another flip of her hair with his free hand, and surprisingly no tension when she rests against him. Hugging is still something he's not quite there with, yet, but this is alright.

(Maine, you only wish your demons were like the ones in the movie. At least those, you could kill by shooting them and then they'd be gone.)

Wrath snorts and rolls her eyes at him. "Not smart and dumb are two different things." Dumb involves a wholly willful component of dumbness. Geeze.

But this really isn't the time to back the guy into a corner and try to make him talk. Wrath's never been a fan of that method anyway. She doesn't like being mean, and has never really bought into the notion that sometimes you have to be mean to someone for their own good. And sometimes it's just really difficult to talk about things, for a lot of reasons. She knows that well. So she just snuggles back against him a little more and is simply there.

Of course there’s a difference, but that’s completely beside the point, at least as far as he’s concerned. He’s never claimed to be good at any of this, has never needed to be in the past, and he’s certainly not going to be making those claims any time soon. Fine, he’ll admit to being dumb, emotionally vulnerable, and completely unable to deal with anything that doesn’t require brute force to fix it.

But she doesn’t push, and that’s the best thing she could do; for that he’s thankful. Anyone else wouldn’t leave well enough alone, but she’s a soldier, she knows the difficulties. She gets it, understands, and that means more than he’d ever be able to put into words.

Perhaps it would behoove him to let go of her hand, but he doesn’t. This is okay, he has to remind himself. She helps. This helps. Maybe at some point, he’ll be able to admit that there’s a problem, that he’s not as put together as he’d like people to believe, but this helps for the time being. He can’t force the words out, but there’s a very, very quiet noise in the back of his throat, nearly a purr; thank you

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