ataraxionlogs | keep holding on when my brain's ticking like a bomb

CHARACTERS: Netherlands, Rey, eventually Topher.
LOCATION: 001, lifts, Brig, etc. You know just dragging each other around the ship by the hair and such.
WARNINGS: Beatdowns imminent.
SUMMARY: So apparently Rey is feeling a little stabbity lately. In a rare moment of not-batshit-crazy, she tells Netherlands to lock her up. Shit goes down on the way.
NOTES: What is taking this form seriously.

Three knocks and he steps back immediately after, not sure which version of Tank Girl he'll encounter when the door slides open. Okay, so after the hell that was Silent Hill he made sure to catch her real name, but in his mind she was still the goddamn Tank Girl and for good reason. If she did decide to go apeshit on him, he had no idea if they were evenly matched or not. The one time he used his real strength against her was over in a split second - for all he knows she could still kick his ass.

He's really hoping that isn't the case. Just in the event that she's in one of her crazier moods and finally flies off the deep end while he's the only one around to catch the worst of it.

He's hoping, too, that she's overreacting, even though he knows better. She wasn't talking crazy, not in that phone call.

Which is why he brings the gun, Belgium's old pistol, wary as he is of both the possibility of having to use it or her getting a grip on it. Not to mention he only has six bullets, total, and it's only loaded with two. The rest were left behind. Fuck, maybe he should tell someone what he's doing - but there's not time for that anymore.

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Rey wishes that she was overreacting as well. But the death rattle sound that accompanies in her room says otherwise. The rational side of her -- the side that made the call in the first place -- smoothly affirms that there is no death rattle. That it's all in her mind, and part of some sick game that's been set by whoever has kept them here in the first place.

God, she really did wish that's the case.

The door knocks, and it springs awake again.

The Salamander acts.

It opens the door, and stares back at him with an unreadable calm.

For long, long moment, he simply stands there... and then he takes a step back. Jerks his head to the side. Just waiting to see if she'll come out or if he'll have to test them out before he had the time to steel himself for it.

It's good that in a moment of brief lucidity, she's reasoned with herself. She has no weapons. Firearms and sharp objects have been tucked away in the hole in her wall, out of her immediate reach. It would've taken her awhile to crawl through and get them back.

But she doesn't need those things. So at first, she's perfectly content with her state of being unarmed.

For now, she plays, and moves forward.

"Hey. Don't want ya walkin' behind me," he grunts, waiting on her to take yet another step or two. Someone else might preface that with no offense or end it with you know why, but neither one of them are much for bullshit and he's not going to start with it now. As it is he wonders if he should - hell, he doesn't know, take her hand or something, but if that isn't patronizing.

So he waits for her to start the first steps of their journey down the hall and bites his lip as he pulls out his communicator. Glances down at it for just a second before he looks back up to her and waves it.

"Okay if I text Kirk? 'Bout this. Get someone up there t'unlock it."

Smart. That's why she asked him, after all. He isn't trusting like some are on the ship, and he isn't incapable if she loses control.

A part of her just about despises herself for her good choices.

"Understood."

She walks on ahead, checking to him over her shoulder at the communicator he has on hand. "I do not care. Do whatever it is you need to."

Rey has never been the type to emote, but there is something more stiff about her tones and her words.

"Right," he snorts, half-amused and half-jumpy, cautiously punches in his message even as he steals a look up at her every few letters.

She's stiff, yeah, but so far so good. At least she seems to be going about this as efficiently as ever - he feels like it takes no time at all for them to get to the lifts. He doesn't waste time seeing if she'll punch the button or not, just does it for them, steps back from her and waits for a response on his comms device.

"Sent it," he mutters.

...He's nervous around her, though that isn't anything new. There's always been that thing about her which makes people uneasy. Most of them, anyway.

All it comes to show is that he has a better sense than most, compared to those who treat her like she's a friend, or even capable of accepting them as such, which she isn't.

She doesn't respond right away. She glanced over at him, watches him, as if waiting for him to try something. If she moves even the slightest muscle of hostility, will he attack? What will he do if it turns out that she doesn't even need to be armed in order to be dangerous?

Perhaps he is aware. He calls her "tank girl" for a reason, silly as the nickname may be.

"You are doing well so far."

Definitely well aware of what she could do - can do? might do? - and that's the thing that has him on his toes, even more than the strangeness of the situation. If someone he knew to be not some powered up crazy person were to ask him to escort them to the brig, he'd shrug and go along with it. Use his strength against them if they acted up like they said they might, and for once not feel guilty that he was using it against a citizen.

He wouldn't be tapping his foot incessantly as they wait for the lift.

That one statement wouldn't make him so paranoid. While he knows it's supposed to be reassurance all he can do is throw a worried look her way, shove his device back into his pocket, resist the urge to cross his arms because he might need those sooner than he'd like.

When the lift opens he waits for her to go in first.

Nervous.

His gestures and overall body language speaks for itself. But now it comes more so to her attention, and piques her more predatory senses.

Seeing the way he moves, how he waits for her to go first... It's a bold decision. Smart. He's not taking any chances. That's good.

Then why does she so badly want to grab him by the head, bash his skull into the wall until it pops? The mental imagery becomes much, much more surreal and daunting than the actual act itself, realizing that she's still standing there, frozen.

Steady now. Not yet.

Her head cants at him, her brows knitting together before she accepts the visual cue for what it is, and steps through the lift doors.

Strange, how she wants this and yet, at the same time, she sees all of this red and haze so badly. It's coating over her vision and making it difficult to see, difficult to think clearly.

If only he knew, he'd attempt smoking it away instead even if it meant giving up the use of an arm for it. Because, hell, he knows he can smoke in the lifts without shit going wrong now. But he doesn't.

It takes her way, way too long to decide to go in. He can't figure out if it's because he's used to people listening to him, immediately - if it's nerves that make the time stretch out - if she actually is reluctant to do as he says. In the back of his mind he thinks that it's the last one, but he's usually a little paranoid and there's no use working himself up over it, getting lost in his own thoughts when she's there and readily admits she's dangerous. Focus, dumbass.

With that he steps in and jabs the button, settles back into the corner and just. Watches. Any movement, any twitch, any change in expression or demeanor or whatever the hell people want to call it.

There are easier ways to go about this. She could slit someone's throat or put a bullet in their head. But she is without weapons at the moment, and either of those things could draw attention. Perhaps the neck...

Instead, she turns her head towards him slightly. Her eyes slowly lift towards him, and stays there for a moment.

They're almost there. The lift stops, and she's just staring.

The staring is. Weird. It's odd that he feels like he's being spied upon but in this case he feels like it. Hunted, maybe, is the best word, but he's too preoccupied with staring back to bother over vernacular. The lift comes to a stop and he jerks his thumb out, you first, but the rest of him is taut and ready to spring. He'd like to trust her, but between what she's told him and the first impact of his own mask trickling in, he can't.

The way she sizes him down very well may be the equivalent to a wolf eying its prey. But she is not the Wolf.

She doesn't move immediately, not even at his gesture. But then she gets the hint, the mental note that now is not the time, not yet. Not yet. And she moves, stopping outside. And she waits for him.

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keep holding on when my brain's ticking like a bomb

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ffff latest tag

i beg to differ

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