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.
Letty hadn't exactly been expecting this, but she finds herself not terribly surprised when she opens the door to her cabin and finds Eliot standing there, looking probably no angrier to anyone who knows him less well than she does by this point, but with an unusual coiled tension to him nonetheless. She's got eyes, shes got ears, she's got a brain: she heard him while they were fighting and she's seen him since, she saw the news about Hardison, she saw the fight with Steve.
Okay so maybe she's mostly surprised to find him standing here instead of being the recipient of some kind of message that he's been discovered standing over a body or someone has tried to put him in Zero, or maybe from Eliot himself telling her he'd killed someone. She'll take it though. By god, she'll take it.
"Hey," she says by way of greeting and steps back to let him in, her brow furrowing as she takes in his knuckles, the new bruises and blood there. That's what concerns her, not the latent violence of him, not the strength with which he hammers on the door. Him.
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?
Letty closes the door behind him, then locks it; she's fixed her cabin since the last time she was here trying to tear it down with her bare hands, and the new surroundings fit her better all around. This is a house that has been lived in, nothing fancy, not the kind of spotless that won't sully a white glove, but sturdy and clean nonetheless. There are traffic paths worn into the dull wood floors and colorless accent rugs, sags in the couch cushions, blemishes in the wallpaper and sunstains on the blinds, but it's comfortable.
Eliot shoves his hand in his pocket; Letty reaches for his wrist, and frowns up at him. She can do both.
"He's hurting too," she points out, not an excuse, but a fact. He's been hurting for a while now, and even hurting others in his pain, and that will need to be addressed. For now, though, she doesn't even need to ask what he's talking about. She saw. "But yeah, he's being a pretty lead-skulled asshole about it."
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."
She does draw his hand out, and she does turn it over in hers, does press and wipe at the damage with the tips of her own fingers just like she has countless times before when her own hand slips on a wrench or one of the crew decides to take out their frustrations exactly like Eliot clearly did. She makes an impatient noise when he pulls away but doesn't try to grab him again; she isn't afraid of him, but that doesn't mean she has any right to force him to let her touch him.
So instead she follows him over to where he's pacing, rubbing his blood off her skin between her fingertips, and frowns more deeply. He's no danger to her, and she's not in danger of crumbling under the weight of his temper and frustration, and this is familiar ground in some ways. Familiar, painful ground.
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."
She doesn't crowd him, doesn't feel the need to pace around after him, doesn't want to risk making him feel cornered. He came to her. That's all she needs, so she takes up a position leaning in the doorway nearest him, arms folded while she watches him struggle to wrangle himself. She can't help with that, not unless he asks her to. Not yet.
She hears Eliot trying to come at the problem from two different angles, from three: Steve hurts, she knows, because he hurts her too and it's made worse by being rendered helpless to stop a slide she can see as clearly as he can; and there's a professional aspect, the complete fiasco of whatever that was Rogers had tried; and there's the betrayal of it, different in someone like Eliot but he is human after all. He is capable of being hurt after all, in ways no amount of skill in combat can prevent.
It's strange to feel so calm in the face of it, but not unhelpful. "I don't understand it either. I don't know how he can come off like he doesn't care at all or get that it was a shit plan and a shit situation made even shittier. He should know better."
"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.
She isn't someone he needs to win over with words anyway. She isn't someone he has to fight. She huffs an agreeable sound to his first claim - he should be, he is too smart for it - but it's not until he's moved on that she interjects again.
"It's an easy defense in a place like this. Everyone can get behind a good old fashioned parking lot brawl to let off steam, but they took it too far."
"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.
"I'm on your side on this one, man." She doesn't figure he doesn't actually know that, considering he showed up here, he's keeping himself here; she also doesn't figure it hurts to say it aloud every now and then, make sure he knows it as surely as she does.
Especially when he's absolutely right: real people really got hurt, and a death toll doesn't reset that. "Rogers is the one that should've known better. He's supposed to be a warden, supposed to keep his shit together and not make it worse on everyone around him. Not go leading a bunch of desperate people straight into... all-a that."
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.
Ah, there it is. Letty makes no move to stop Eliot or get into his way when she sees him abort his move for the furniture in this house, not the least because it isn't real. This isn't Dom's house, this isn't Mia's stuff. It's all fake. He can wreck anything he wants if it helps him feel better, but Letty doesn't budge.
She won't budge, now that Eliot has trusted her enough to bring up Hardison of all people. A man, as far as she's seen, that they're still pretending Eliot doesn't even know.
"From what I've seen, that's exactly what he seems to think this place is. Doesn't help with fucking Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader wandering around here, but that doesn't mean the rest of that isn't true."
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?"
And now is the time Letty drifts closer, not sitting down with him yet, but moving around in front of him where he can clearly see her, where she can see him. Her arms are still folded but she tips her head so she can still see his face.
"He's a good person," she tells him, her voice low, "And he cares a lot. But it's like - it's like trying to explain how it feels to break a bone to someone who's never broken one. They know it hurts. They know it sucks. But until they break one of their own, they'll never really get it."
"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."
"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.
It isn't fair, and in the past Letty hasn't been shy or slow about shutting him down when she thinks he's being an asshole; she doesn't now. She takes a deep breath and drops her arms from where they're folded, but she just watches him slam his hand down on the arm of the couch. Both the furniture and she can take a little venting, no harm, no foul.
"I did," she admits. And: "Guessing that didn't go so well." She already knows it didn't. This is permission of the nonexplicit variety, and a request for permission at the same time: he can tell her, if he wants, if he wants her to know.
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."
She's watching for it, and the moment he goes to sit down she trails around in front of him. The coffee table will hold her - she knows it will - so that's where she perches, close but not beside him, where he can see her and she can see him.
"And does he seem to have actually learned anything from it?"
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.
"You can't force him to," she says, her dark eyes catching his pale ones. It's not gentle, but not harsh either. Steady. "You're used to points that people make with their fists, or bailing when people stop listening to you." Used to not being important enough to notice when he does, but that's for another time.
"But give him some time. No one listens when they're still fresh off being attacked."
"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.
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.
The moment he reaches for her is the one she's been watching for, and she transfers easily over from the coffee table to the couch beside him, leaving her wrist in his grasp.
"Which means," she announces as she settles, "That I get to choose how we spend the afternoon, because punching things and running a new hole in the deck wasn't attractive either. And I think that maybe a couple Coronas and me making you some snacks to make fun, maybe a movie or some video games, is exactly the right answer."
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."
Normally, it's a comment that would earn him a punch in the nearest bodypart; just now she's too busy leaning where he settles, rolling her eyes hard enough that she actually shifts positions. That's as close as she gets to getting up, either.
"Hey, rolling up in here and hogging my couch is one thing. Dissing my hospitality is another. But you're in luck: I have some dirty water, if you'd rather have that."
"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.
[It takes Letty a while to answer; she's busy talking with her inmate - her friend - as it happens, and sorting herself out from all the shit that's come her way in the past couple weeks.
This message, when she reads it, gets a raised eyebrow and would earn him a hard look if they were standing face to face.
[ 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. ]
The door is simple, weathered wood with peeling white paint over it; if it were attached to a house, it would be found in an area of Los Angeles that isn't quite considered a slum or a ghetto but isn't quite not, either. It would be in front of a yard that had tufts of dry grass and a long, oil stained, cracking cement driveway, and an uneven sidewalk, and crammed in side by side with houses just like it.
Letty answers the door only a moment later to reveal an interior that matches: it's clean, but everything is well worn and handed down and a little chaotic, as tends to happen when a lot of people live in the same space. There are only two Toretto siblings but they had to take care of themselves young, and the entire neighborhood was their family, was welcome in this house. Letty herself is a small, compact woman, wearing doubled tanktops and grease-stained jeans and sturdy boots, her hair back in a messy braid. She looks him over - if this door were attached to a house he would be blatantly out of place in front of it - and raises an eyebrow.
"You the one wanted to talk?" she asks, not yet stepping back to clear the door she's leaning on.
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.
Letty is not accustomed to being on the professional end of anything - at least, not the kind of professional his tone, his suit suggest. She has to beat back her initial reaction, which is to curl her lip and close the door. Alan is the kind of professional that shows up again later with cops and government papers and lawyers. The kind of professional that has looked at Letty and people like her as a problem to be solved all her life.
But this isn't Los Angeles, and if the Barge has taught her anything - again; if the Barge has taught her anything again - it's that assumptions don't get her into even more trouble than back in her own world, her own life. So she doesn't curl her lip, though she does look him up and down, very obviously, one time; she doesn't slam the door. She steps back out of the way and tips her head.
"Come on in. Rather have you tell whatever it is to me than think you need to take it up with him." If he's looking for Eliot's warden, she doubts Alan thinks it's good.
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."
Letty stands a few steps inside the entryway, her arms folded, her dark eyes steady on Alan while he speaks. Her shoulders are already tense by the time he says the name Kylo Ren, but it's not confusion in her expression - far from it. She isn't remotely surprised by anything she hears, although Kylo Ren's name is like a shot to the gut.
She lifts her chin. "Pretty sure I know more about what Eliot's done previously and what he's like to continue to do," she states flatly. "And I know I was down for a while but if I'm up? You don't try anything on with him, not even a conversation, without coming through me first. Clear?"
She knows Eliot, and she isn't about to tell Alan that if what he says is true, Eliot gave them that 'little' fanfare for one reason or another. Letty is not capable of keeping Eliot from killing someone he thinks needs killed; no one is, shy of removing his free will, and she'd kill a fellow warden over that and damn the consequences. She also isn't about to discuss that with him.
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."
She's young, and she's stubborn, and she's viciously protective over her people, even those who aren't her assigned inmate. Especially those. She has never stopped to wonder how she would feel if she could not have respected whatever inmate she was assigned because she isn't in the habit of trading in might have beens and what ifs, and she does love Eliot, and respect him, and value him.
She hears the evasion in his answer - "Be sure you do," she affirms. - but lets it slide in favor of the other evasion. She cocks her head, then shakes her head.
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Did he give you a reason?" she presses, blunt.
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Date: 2016-12-01 09:53 am (UTC)From: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.
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Date: 2016-12-01 01:59 pm (UTC)From:Okay so maybe she's mostly surprised to find him standing here instead of being the recipient of some kind of message that he's been discovered standing over a body or someone has tried to put him in Zero, or maybe from Eliot himself telling her he'd killed someone. She'll take it though. By god, she'll take it.
"Hey," she says by way of greeting and steps back to let him in, her brow furrowing as she takes in his knuckles, the new bruises and blood there. That's what concerns her, not the latent violence of him, not the strength with which he hammers on the door. Him.
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Date: 2016-12-02 12:16 am (UTC)From:"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?
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Date: 2016-12-02 03:00 am (UTC)From:Eliot shoves his hand in his pocket; Letty reaches for his wrist, and frowns up at him. She can do both.
"He's hurting too," she points out, not an excuse, but a fact. He's been hurting for a while now, and even hurting others in his pain, and that will need to be addressed. For now, though, she doesn't even need to ask what he's talking about. She saw. "But yeah, he's being a pretty lead-skulled asshole about it."
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Date: 2016-12-02 03:22 am (UTC)From:"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."
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Date: 2016-12-02 08:37 am (UTC)From:So instead she follows him over to where he's pacing, rubbing his blood off her skin between her fingertips, and frowns more deeply. He's no danger to her, and she's not in danger of crumbling under the weight of his temper and frustration, and this is familiar ground in some ways. Familiar, painful ground.
"You don't believe that."
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Date: 2016-12-02 09:25 am (UTC)From:"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."
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Date: 2016-12-02 10:08 am (UTC)From:She hears Eliot trying to come at the problem from two different angles, from three: Steve hurts, she knows, because he hurts her too and it's made worse by being rendered helpless to stop a slide she can see as clearly as he can; and there's a professional aspect, the complete fiasco of whatever that was Rogers had tried; and there's the betrayal of it, different in someone like Eliot but he is human after all. He is capable of being hurt after all, in ways no amount of skill in combat can prevent.
It's strange to feel so calm in the face of it, but not unhelpful. "I don't understand it either. I don't know how he can come off like he doesn't care at all or get that it was a shit plan and a shit situation made even shittier. He should know better."
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Date: 2016-12-03 04:15 am (UTC)From:"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.
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Date: 2016-12-03 05:07 am (UTC)From:"It's an easy defense in a place like this. Everyone can get behind a good old fashioned parking lot brawl to let off steam, but they took it too far."
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Date: 2016-12-03 05:37 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-12-03 06:26 am (UTC)From:Especially when he's absolutely right: real people really got hurt, and a death toll doesn't reset that. "Rogers is the one that should've known better. He's supposed to be a warden, supposed to keep his shit together and not make it worse on everyone around him. Not go leading a bunch of desperate people straight into... all-a that."
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Date: 2016-12-03 06:41 am (UTC)From:"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.
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Date: 2016-12-03 07:05 am (UTC)From:She won't budge, now that Eliot has trusted her enough to bring up Hardison of all people. A man, as far as she's seen, that they're still pretending Eliot doesn't even know.
"From what I've seen, that's exactly what he seems to think this place is. Doesn't help with fucking Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader wandering around here, but that doesn't mean the rest of that isn't true."
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Date: 2016-12-03 07:29 am (UTC)From:"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?"
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Date: 2016-12-17 04:19 am (UTC)From:"He's a good person," she tells him, her voice low, "And he cares a lot. But it's like - it's like trying to explain how it feels to break a bone to someone who's never broken one. They know it hurts. They know it sucks. But until they break one of their own, they'll never really get it."
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Date: 2016-12-17 07:18 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2016-12-19 05:47 am (UTC)From:But she's beginning to see the shape of something else, too, and her lips press together.
"You tried to say something to him about it?"
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Date: 2016-12-19 08:53 am (UTC)From:"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.
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Date: 2017-01-06 04:07 am (UTC)From:"I did," she admits. And: "Guessing that didn't go so well." She already knows it didn't. This is permission of the nonexplicit variety, and a request for permission at the same time: he can tell her, if he wants, if he wants her to know.
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Date: 2017-01-07 06:42 pm (UTC)From:"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."
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Date: 2017-01-08 02:48 am (UTC)From:"And does he seem to have actually learned anything from it?"
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Date: 2017-01-13 09:21 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2017-01-16 05:12 pm (UTC)From:"But give him some time. No one listens when they're still fresh off being attacked."
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Date: 2017-01-16 10:13 pm (UTC)From:"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.
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Date: 2017-01-21 04:09 am (UTC)From:"But you didn't show up here because you think throwing yourself at that wall some more was going to do anyone any good."
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Date: 2017-01-22 07:53 am (UTC)From:"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.
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Date: 2017-01-30 04:32 pm (UTC)From:"Which means," she announces as she settles, "That I get to choose how we spend the afternoon, because punching things and running a new hole in the deck wasn't attractive either. And I think that maybe a couple Coronas and me making you some snacks to make fun, maybe a movie or some video games, is exactly the right answer."
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Date: 2017-02-04 08:27 am (UTC)From:"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."
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Date: 2017-02-05 03:26 am (UTC)From:"Hey, rolling up in here and hogging my couch is one thing. Dissing my hospitality is another. But you're in luck: I have some dirty water, if you'd rather have that."
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Date: 2017-02-05 09:40 am (UTC)From:text - private
Date: 2017-03-29 01:02 pm (UTC)From:text - private
Date: 2017-03-30 02:42 am (UTC)From:This message, when she reads it, gets a raised eyebrow and would earn him a hard look if they were standing face to face.
As it stands, though:]
I'm free now. This I'd love to hear. 7-18.
action
Date: 2017-03-30 11:09 am (UTC)From: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 02:00 pm (UTC)From:Letty answers the door only a moment later to reveal an interior that matches: it's clean, but everything is well worn and handed down and a little chaotic, as tends to happen when a lot of people live in the same space. There are only two Toretto siblings but they had to take care of themselves young, and the entire neighborhood was their family, was welcome in this house. Letty herself is a small, compact woman, wearing doubled tanktops and grease-stained jeans and sturdy boots, her hair back in a messy braid. She looks him over - if this door were attached to a house he would be blatantly out of place in front of it - and raises an eyebrow.
"You the one wanted to talk?" she asks, not yet stepping back to clear the door she's leaning on.
action
Date: 2017-03-31 02:26 pm (UTC)From:"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?"
action
Date: 2017-04-01 02:55 am (UTC)From:But this isn't Los Angeles, and if the Barge has taught her anything - again; if the Barge has taught her anything again - it's that assumptions don't get her into even more trouble than back in her own world, her own life. So she doesn't curl her lip, though she does look him up and down, very obviously, one time; she doesn't slam the door. She steps back out of the way and tips her head.
"Come on in. Rather have you tell whatever it is to me than think you need to take it up with him." If he's looking for Eliot's warden, she doubts Alan thinks it's good.
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Date: 2017-04-01 03:42 am (UTC)From:"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."
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Date: 2017-04-09 01:46 am (UTC)From:She lifts her chin. "Pretty sure I know more about what Eliot's done previously and what he's like to continue to do," she states flatly. "And I know I was down for a while but if I'm up? You don't try anything on with him, not even a conversation, without coming through me first. Clear?"
She knows Eliot, and she isn't about to tell Alan that if what he says is true, Eliot gave them that 'little' fanfare for one reason or another. Letty is not capable of keeping Eliot from killing someone he thinks needs killed; no one is, shy of removing his free will, and she'd kill a fellow warden over that and damn the consequences. She also isn't about to discuss that with him.
"Did he give you a reason?" she asks instead.
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Date: 2017-04-13 01:27 am (UTC)From:"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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Date: 2017-04-19 10:53 pm (UTC)From:She hears the evasion in his answer - "Be sure you do," she affirms. - but lets it slide in favor of the other evasion. She cocks her head, then shakes her head.
"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Did he give you a reason?" she presses, blunt.