lifeaftr | home sweet home? (closed)

Entry tags:

home sweet home? (closed)

Who: Leonard Church and Agents Washington, Texas, and Maine
What: Meetings, reunions, and definitely no awkwardness.
When: shortly after the April intro log
Where: Islet #4, Cottage #3
Warnings: canon typical language

[ What's better than a group of space marines with lots of interpersonal baggage? Plucking them all from different points in time, then shoving them in the same house and seeing what happens.

MINGLE POST. Make your own top-levels, tag around, go nuts. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Tex's presence is always impossible to ignore. He can't help but liken her to Maine, in a way; smaller she might be, the weight of her presence is no less heavy. It's just denser, compacted into a smaller mass.]

[Particularly now, she's impossible to forget.]

This is Ami.

[He might as well introduce them, right?]

C.T. was...well, she was here for a bit. Brought this home one day.

Ami.

[ She takes that as a cue to come closer, reaching out a hand to pet its head firmly. ]

Connie.

[ She says that more softly, tilting her head to look the animal in the face. ]

I would have liked to have seen her. Not sure if she would have wanted to see me, though.

Yeah. Connie.

[It feels wrong calling her that. They were on...the terms they were on were complicated, limited always by C.T.'s desire to go home, back to someone she'd met and loved and a place that probably appealed to her more than the Project ever did.]

[He's not sure he's earned that nickname back. Not really.]

She was like you. Been somewhere else. Learned a lot while she was away.

Mm.

[ Somehow hearing that doesn't surprise her. Why shouldn't that have happened? It seems fitting for Connie to have been able to escape death by being granted another life. ]

Hopefully she got to go back.

I hope she did too. She was happier there.

[Happier than she was when he knew her, toward the end.]

Had a fiancé and everything. Ami here, she's...I think her name means "writer" in the language he spoke. Or the language he learned. I don't know.

[Ami starts purring, clearly pleased with the level of attention she's receiving.]

[ Hearing that makes Tex's expression go contemplative. She doesn't mention her boyfriend on the Moira. She hasn't mentioned him to anyone here. She wonders to herself about going back, and whether she wants to. Whether living life on the ship is better than living life here.

She thinks so. On the Moira there is adventure and exploration. Here there's just dank jungle. ]

Yeah. She deserved it.

[ She says it quietly, then continues to pet Ami and think. ]

[It's not surprising that she'd have regrets, after that. They all did.]

[He should've listened. She tried to warn him, tried to spell it out for him, but he was too hung up on his blind faith the Project to listen.]

You and her...did you guys know each other? On the Moira?

[Or was the last thing Tex ever heard from her a video file, delivered postmortem?]

No, she never came there.

[ She decides to sit at Ami's feet, alongside Washington. This is weirdly intimate and companionable, but it was also weird to be standing there in front of them. So she figures she might as well. ]

Church was there twice though.

Twice.

[That...sounds like it might've sucked. Wash doesn't suppress the sympathetic wince. He's aware of Tex's proximity the way someone might be aware of a loaded gun in the room. But she's hardly looking to fight just now.]

[Besides, Ami is clearly enjoying herself.]

Same one both times, or did you have to explain it all to him twice?

I had to explain it twice.

[ Again, she leaves a lot out. She'd wasted too much time keeping the first version at arm's length and had jumped into things too quickly with the second. This time she's trying to be measured, hitting a tempo somewhere in the middle, but that doesn't seem to be going well, either. ]

I thought I was done with all that. And then I woke up here.

At least this time you didn't have to do the explaining. I already did that bit, and it went great.

[In that it ended with Church screaming at him and leaving the house because he couldn't stand to be in the same room as him, but hey, it's better than trying to set Wash's brain on fire and using him to destroy himself.]

Well, there is that.

[ She glances over at him with a slight smirk—just enough so he knows she's teasing. Ami seems to sense the good humor and butts her head up against Tex's hand, still purring. ]

No, but really, Church is, ah...he's stubborn. But he doesn't hang on to grudges. I'm sure it will pan out to be okay in the end.

Well, he's still living with me, so there is that.

[As far as Wash is concerned, he's earned Church's anger a thousand times over. He's not about to protest that.]

Doesn't matter. I deserved it.

What did he do?

[ How much could he do? ]

What he always does. Got pissed off, yelled a bunch, and left. That's about all he could manage.

[Not angry enough to try and actually shoot Wash, but - even if he could manage to hit him, Wash has been shot by supposed allies before. Nothing new.]

Oh.

[ She waves her hand dismissively. ]

Well, I'm glad you know better than to take that personally or anything.

It's not like I could just sever ties with anyone who ever tried to shoot me anyway. From a professional standpoint, it's not really tenable.

[That's just how it is when you're a former Recovery Agent.]

I'll keep that in mind.

[ Once again, teasing. ]

Well, it's not technically relevant to us, all right?

[...yet, he doesn't say. He doesn't want to say that. He does not want to imply that might come up.]

Well, if I need to defend Church's honor or anything like that I'll be sure to give you a head start.

Yeah, that'll work out great.

[Ami bumps her head up against his hand, petulant, and he sighs. Scratches her behind the ears in concession.]

Church said anything about if he'd be all right with you...you know, here?

[ She doesn't answer right away, patting the tigerlily's chest, watching as Washington pats her. Eventually she murmurs: ]

He kind of has to be.

Say again?

[He makes no attempt to mask his frown, to make the crimping of his brow downward anything other than what it is: critical and confused.]

[ She sighs. ]

I'm here. Unless the Ingress pulls me right back to the Moira tomorrow, he kind of has to be okay with it, doesn't he?

[ She frowns to herself. ]

I can't decide which of those things would be better.

I meant in...you know, in the same house. If he would be all right with you living here.

[Coping with that which can't just be dismissed is just how it is when you've worked with Project Freelancer; that's not what he's protesting.]

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