leavetreadmarks: (Lost Over the Shoulder)


This is Letty.  I'm busy right now, so do what you do and I'll hit you back.

Date: 2016-12-01 09:53 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (beat up)
Eliot's restless and angry, so damn angry, after the last altercation with Steve over the network, and he can't stand to stay cooped up in his cabin, but honestly doesn't want to go anywhere on board where he could possibly run into Steve. Or Hardison, for that matter. He's not sure he wouldn't punch either man in the face right now, and that's not something he actually wants to do.

God dammit. He hadn't meant to get involved, and he probably shouldn't have, because it's not like he hadn't known how it would end. He's already had it out with Steve in person. Repeatedly. Loudly. And the only reason there hadn't been shaking was because Steve's been death-tolling pretty brutally. But dammit, Steve had pulled that 'no harm no foul' bullshit out of his ass and he'd seen red. Because what the hell? He knows Steve's desperate, knows he has been for months, and he's honestly not surprised that he'd jumped on one more hare-brained scheme to try and escape, but... it's the aftermath that's bothering him. Steve's, and if he's honest Hardison's, willful blindness to the harm they'd caused, the people they'd hurt and disappointed and alienated. Their apparent indifference to their pain and insistence that what they'd done was justifiable... was right.

He's so damn angry over it he can hardly breathe through it, and his knuckles are bruised and bloodied from where he'd actually punched through the wall of his cabin repeatedly over the course of this latest conversation with Steve. He's not really paying attention to where he's going, but he's honestly not surprised when he looks up and realizes he's in Letty's hall, not far from her door. Still, he hesitates for a moment, nearly turning around and walking away, before he decides... well, fuck it, actually. He trusts her, as far as he trusts anyone here, he likes her, whether he should or not, and she's the only person here who knows about his relationship with Hardison and has a probably better idea than he'd really like of his relationship with Steve. She's the only damn person on board he can really talk to.

So yeah, fuck it. He raises his hand and hammers on her door, and hopes like hell she's actually there, because he isn't sure what the hell he'll do or where he'll go if she's not.

Date: 2016-12-02 12:16 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (busted up)
That reaction is a large part of why he's here, not the concern--because he's not sure how comfortable he is with that. He worries about other people, it's not meant to be a two way street--but that fact that she knows exactly what he is, what he's done, what he's still capable of, and there's not an ounce of fear in her. It's not stupidity, she isn't under-estimating him... she knows she's safe with him, and she's right. Which is why he brushes past her, shoving his bloodied hand into his pocket for the moment, because that's not the focus here, dammit.

"If I wanna strangle him this bad, it's a damn wonder no one else has gotten 'round to it yet!" he snaps, turning back to her as she shuts the door behind him. "Jesus christ, is he looking to get revenge murdered?" Isn't it fucking enough that Hardison already has... and that even if he has every god damn intention of killing the bastard who did it, that he can't honest to fucking god blame whoever it was?

Date: 2016-12-02 03:22 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (lost)
He scowls down at her, fisting his hand in his pocket and starting to step back out of range before he just gives up and lets her fingers close around his wrist. He doesn't have the fight in him for this too. Not now, not when he feels like every ounce of rage in him is ready to boil over and the people he wants to direct it at just... he can't. He can't, and he can't take being angry at her too. So he lets her draw his hand out, scowling still, lets her turn it over to examine his bruised and abraded knuckles, and lets her say the words that keep going round and round in his own skull. The thing is, they're not enough. Not for this.

"Don't you think I know that?!" he demands, and there's as much frustration and pain in those words as there is bubbling anger, the painful tension he's still holding himself with is almost as much exhaustion and anguish as it is restrained violence. "I know, Letty. I'm the one's been dealing with him falling apart for months now, I fucking know!" He jerks his hand away, not violently, not because he can't take her touch, but because he has to move, and he paces a few steps away and pinches the bridge of his nose between bloodied fingers. "But he threw us all under the damn bus for nothing."

Date: 2016-12-02 09:25 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
He doesn't move away when she follows him; it hadn't been about getting away from her, it had been about needing to move, to pace, to let the energy vibrating under his skin despite how exhausted he is out somehow. He's usually so good at being still, poised, ready for violence but visibly, palpably, in complete control of himself. Now he's bleeding restless, unfocused energy.

"Don't I?" he demands, dropping his hand and flexing his fingers into a fist until his knuckles pop, feeling the pull of abraded flesh. "Have you been listening to him? Have you heard that shit? No harm no-" He stops, jaw clenching, and if there were anything within range--anything but Letty--he'd be throwing a punch. "I know he's desperate, Letty. I know he's fucking cracking." He sits in bed next to him more nights than not, reading or watching TV he doesn't give a damn about on mute so Steve can feel safe enough to sleep. He knows.

"There was no god damn plan. There was nothing but shoot at it and hope to blow the place wide open." And he's not going to go into the dozens of reasons that's a travesty and a nightmare of a plan, he doesn't have the energy and he thinks she's smart enough to know. He'd thought Steve was smart enough to know. "And that's bad enough. That-" He shakes his head, knuckles cracking again as his fists clench and release, clench and release. "How the hell is he not getting it? The asshole in charge fucks us over constantly, yeah, but this time it was our own god damn people, and he doesn't get how that makes it different."

Date: 2016-12-03 04:15 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"He should be better! He's too smart for this shit!" Eliot snarls, still pacing, still vibrating with anger and energy he currently has no place to spend. He could sit down calmly and outline a good dozen plus reasons why everything about the mutiny was stupid, from tactics to strategy to plain god damned common sense, but he doesn't have the patience for it. Doesn't have the damn mental energy for playing word games. He's not a talker, he's a fighter and, while you'd think after a week of fighting phantoms and nightmares he'd have had enough, he's vibrating with the poorly suppressed need for violence as an outlet.

"They threw us all under the god damned bus," he repeats. "'Cause they wanted to stir shit." Which... is not a fair assessment of most of the mutineers at all, no matter how angry Eliot is. It is, however, a very fair assessment of precisely one of them. The one he hasn't been talking about at all so far.

Date: 2016-12-03 05:37 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"Their absolute best god damned case scenario was more likely to end up with us all dead than anything." Which is whole continents away from taking it too far in his book. "And what they did accomplish... real god damned people got hurt." And it might sound strange, very legitimately strange to anyone who knows anything about his past, to hear that coming from him, but he's legitimately deeply angered by how Steve and Hardison both seem to think that the suffering and deaths had been acceptable collateral damage. "Just 'cause you come back, it doesn't mean death doesn't matter. It doesn't mean peoples' suffering and pain isn't real." Hell, it means you can't get the hell away from it when you don't even have the release of death to look forward to.

Date: 2016-12-03 06:41 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
It does help to hear. To hear it from someone who actually matters to him, not in a general way, but in a deeply persona, day to day way. From someone who's his in much the same way Steve and Hardison are. To know that not all of the people he's closest to have come down on the side of a moral line that he's not going to be able to just shrug and ignore and move on.

"He should've," he agrees, and he's finally a little less vehement, if no less angry. "Steve, he's-" He breaks off, shaking his head. He's sinking. Eliot can see it, and he's trying to keep him afloat, has been trying so damn hard, but he's still sinking just the same. Maybe slowly, but no less surely, and some days Eliot almost feels like he can see the wreck of him breaking up as he goes. "But Rogers should'a known, all the damn wardens should'a known, and then... christ-"

He turns away abruptly, fists clenching and voice rising, a heartbeat away from grabbing whatever comes to hand first and rocketing it into the nearest wall in frustration. "What the hell does he think he's doing, with those god damn shirts and fucking taunting everyone on the damn network?!" he demands, with absolutely no transition as he switches over to what's honestly eating at him more than any concern with Steve's 'betrayal'. "It's like we're a damn thought experiment, or those stupid little animated characters in his god damn video games." Like they don't even matter. Any of them.

Date: 2016-12-03 07:29 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
It might not be real, but it's hers. Her home, as far as anyplace on the damn hell boat can be, and he won't destroy it... won't risk destroying her trust in him, risk finally giving her a reason to decide to fear him. It takes all his dwindling control, but he keeps his hands fisted at his sides.

"He's the smartest damn guy I've ever met, Letty, how the hell does none of that translate into any common god damn sense?" Or empathy, which might be the bigger failing. "How the hell-" He shakes his head and drops suddenly onto the edge of her couch like his strings have been cut. "How the hell can't he see?"

Date: 2016-12-17 07:18 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"I know he's a good person, Letty. But people didn't just die, they suffered. And they did it knowing it was because they'd been betrayed." And that bothers him. It bothers him more than the suffering itself. "And I wanna shake him 'til that god damn big brain breaks loose and rattles around his head like a marble."

Date: 2016-12-19 08:53 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"Of course I fuckin' said something to him!" And it's not fair at all that he just about explodes at her at the question. He knows it's not fair. He's just so close to the end of his damn rope right now he feels like he's hanging on by his fingernails as he swings over the void.

"Did you see those damn shirts? Did you see what he fucking said to Furiosa?" He spins, fists clenched. He's furious and he has no acceptable outlet, which means he makes himself find the most solid, unbreakable looking piece of furniture in range and hammers his hand down on it in lieu of putting his fist right through her damn wall.

If he was home, if he was anywhere in the real world, this is the point where he'd be finding himself a crowded dive bar with that particular buzz of barely restrained violence and putting his finger on the scale. Making sure the odds were stacked high enough against him to make it a challenge then edging it past the tipping point. Work the vibrating rage out from under his skin by breaking some heads and some bottles and some furniture, then maybe finding a willing partner for a different kind of hand to hand after, if he wasn't bleeding too badly. Here and now, though, he has no good options. He can't go to Steve or to Alec or to Erskine, can't pick a random fight to blow off steam... and, hell, he's kidding himself if he thinks he could even in the real world right now. As wound tight as he is there'd be bodies on the floor by the time he was done, and he's not going there. Not in anger. But he doesn't know what he can do to deal with it either; he's barely hanging on to something resembling control by the skin of his teeth.

Date: 2017-01-07 06:42 pm (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
The fact that she isn't afraid of him, that she doesn't flinch, or cringe, or back away, is most of the reason he came here. That he can let himself blow up like this. The fact that she doesn't push--that he knew she wouldn't--is the rest of it, and he deflates almost as fast as he'd let himself boil over.

"Might as well've not gone at all," he rumbles, and turns to drop on the edge of the couch he'd just recently been abusing. "Dumbass figures it was all worth it as a damn learning experience."

Date: 2017-01-13 09:21 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (pic#9933824)
He glances up at her through bangs that are just starting to get long enough to obscure his vision when he lets them, and won't be near as long as he likes for another month or two at least. "Not a god damned thing that matters." It's quiet, and tired, and... almost defeated. Which is something he's never been, no matter how bad things have gotten, at least not on the barge, and so very rarely in the time before. Hardison might recognize it, if he paid enough attention to see, Nate and Sophie and Parker, definitely Parker, would.

Date: 2017-01-16 10:13 pm (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"Can't force him t'do a god damn thing," he agrees, voice rough with frustration. "Kid's too damn cocky to have the sense to be afraid." Which he'd gotten to mostly like when it meant Hardison wasn't afraid of him, but will never not drive him up a damn wall when it means the kid doesn't have the sense to keep himself safe... even if a lot of that is because he trusts Eliot to do it for him.

"And there's no walking away here." Not that it'd been an option for a long time even before the barge. For all the times he'd nearly turned on his heel and walked away due to Nate's bullshit, he'd come back every time. He slouches back against the couch and lets his head fall back with another exasperated huff. "All time's gonna do is give him more chances to convince himself of just how right he was," he grumbles.

Date: 2017-01-22 07:53 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
He does. And he knows he's a good man, better than him by a long shot, and it's driving him fucking nuts that Hardison can't see how wrong he is here, how much damage Rogers' plan did and how many people it hurt for no good reason.

"No," he rasps, and leans forward again, reaching almost sloppily to curl a big, calloused hand around her wrist. "No, I don't guess I did." More like he came here looking for someone he gives a shit about, and can be around without wanting to pop them one.

Date: 2017-02-04 08:27 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
His shoulders actually drop a fraction, a little of the tension draining from him as she settles against his side, and he lets go of her wrist so he can drop his arm around her shoulders instead, pulling her with him as he leans back into the couch. He's so damn tired of this place, and all the shit it's constantly throwing at them, and some days it's more frustrating than reassuring that she's one of the only solid anchors in his life. Today isn't one of them, though, he's just glad to not be alone in his room, hammering holes into the drywall with his fists until they're pulped.

"Yeah," he answers, but he doesn't move or let her go. "That doesn't sound like a half bad idea... even if Corona's barely better'n dirty water."

Date: 2017-02-05 09:40 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] a_very_distinctive
a_very_distinctive: (Default)
"Said it was barely better," he points out. "Not that it wasn't any better at all." But yeah, he's not letting her up just yet anyway. He needs the warmth and the solidity too much just now, when it's feeling more and more like what passes for the world around him is fraying at the seams, and him with it.

text - private

Date: 2017-03-29 01:02 pm (UTC)From: [personal profile] ishallshedmylight
ishallshedmylight: (Default)
I have some information about your inmate that I'd like to speak to you about, when you have the time.

action

Date: 2017-03-30 11:09 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] ishallshedmylight
ishallshedmylight: (concerned)
[ He makes his way down, choosing to go in a suit instead of, well, his uniform. It's become increasingly clear that people seem to get more difficult seeing it most of the time, so instead, it's a button up and slacks. He looks a bit straight laced but... well...

He knocks on the door and waits with his hands behind his back, glancing around thoughtfully at the door itself to see what he can glean from it. ]

action

Date: 2017-03-31 02:26 pm (UTC)From: [personal profile] ishallshedmylight
ishallshedmylight: (smug)
He'd definitely be out of place, but Alan merely catalogs the information before offering a respectful nod of his head. He doesn't look like he even necessarily plans on coming in; this is just a courtesy call, after all.

"I did. I wanted to ask if you were aware of certain activities that your inmate's been engaging in." And now that he's in person, the tone might be easier to read: it's professional concern, nothing disdainful or argumentative. He knows his own wardening methods leave people with incorrect assumptions, after all.

He glances around for a moment before turning to look at Letty.

"Would you prefer to discuss it here or inside?"

Date: 2017-04-01 03:42 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] ishallshedmylight
ishallshedmylight: (pb: looking through you)
Yeah, he can't much help that he looks like that, but that's what happens when you've got two ridiculously white bread middle names. He steps in, keeping to the entryway before bowing his head, a polite thanks for letting him in.

"I did already speak to him, but it was to let him know that I knew what he'd done and to find out what his reasons were."

He straightens his spine a little and looks her more properly in the face again.

"He killed my inmate. A single hit, from behind, with little fanfare. I have reason to believe that he's done it previously and may continue to do so."

He spreads his hands.

"My inmate is Kylo Ren. So I can't say I don't understand why it was done. And he's certainly done his own share of terrible things on this ship. But I thought, whatever you plan to do, that you at least deserve to know."

Date: 2017-04-13 01:27 am (UTC)From: [personal profile] ishallshedmylight
ishallshedmylight: (construct: costume)
He's not sure for the reason for the hostility, and it makes his back straighten a little, but he breathes in deep and does his best to keep civil. He knows how frustrating it is, after all, to wake up from a coma to discover that others have done things to your inmate that you wouldn't have. And, he reminds himself, she's young. That settles his shoulders a little.

"I do my best not to interfere with other's work on this ship as much as possible," he answers to that, which isn't a 'yes' because he doesn't feel he can necessarily give that assurance when Eliot may attempt to murder Kylo again. Or anyone, really; he doesn't approve of murder and never will. And he won't give his word in such a case. "And I should think the reason is obvious. I'm not blind to the things my inmate has done here, after all."

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leavetreadmarks: (Default)
Leticia "Letty" Ortiz

January 2022

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