InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I've never meant anything more"

geneticbrawl (geneticbrawl) wrote in yegods,
@ 2012-04-04 17:00:00

Entry tags:

!log, rodion bonniman, rylee nox

WHO Roddy Bonniman and Rylee Nox
WHERE Cozy coffee shop in the city
WHEN Early evening
RATING PG?
SUMMARY Rylee has a confession to make
STATUS Complete

Things had calmed down, finally from her week-long vacation. Dr. Price had his little tantrum on Monday, she'd had hers, and all the work he'd asked her to do was done before he got into the lab on Tuesday. That meant the silent treatment on Tuesday. Well, except for her bitching about the injury to her leg, for which he only seemed to have a mild interest because it had to do with the Catacombs. But today - today was normal. The reason they worked so well together was that he never tried to pull rank on her, and when they did fight, he was always cool, calm and collected. It threw her off - she got under most people's skin when she wanted to. It never really worked with the Doctor.

Anyway, since today was normal, she was in a good mood, and she was focused. Focused enough, in fact, that she intended to take home some work. Well, not home precisely. Coffee shop. This was a cool place, a good place for her to work. The atmosphere was laid back, but it wasn't just cool hipsters who hung out here. Mostly, it was an... alternative group that hung out here. Still, it remained a casual place. But the background music was her kind of music, and the decor was edgy enough to draw her in.

Even though she was serious about doing her work, she'd decided she needed some company, if only to keep her distracted when she needed those few minute breaks here and there that allowed her focus. Otherwise, she'd just stare at the numbers and get nothing done. Luckily, she heard the jingle of the chime on the door, and looked up.

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-05 03:14 am UTC (link)

Roddy's eyebrows raised as he learned something he did not know about Felix. His mind drifted off slightly, thinking about Felix in high school. As much as a shame as it was, Roddy could very well imagine Felix getting picked on, at least before he got to his full height. He was almost too good and pure for high school. Even Roddy had been, long ago, and he was no where near as good as Felix. At that age, kids were all about being big and tough, asserting dominance and whatnot. Felix would have been like the Simon in the high school version of Lord of the Flies.

Unfortunately, Roddy's mind had begun to drift off as he was looking her in the face. So while he was imagining people throwing things at an awkward, loving teenage version of Felix, he was looking her in the eyes.

And he really should not have done that.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-05 03:23 am UTC (link)

Rylee was waiting for Roddy to answer her question, when suddenly, she felt herself begin speaking again. As in, she hadn't intended to say anything, and what she did say, she didn't even know it was on her mind to say. "I feel guilty that Matt lost both his parents and I still have my mother, and him. I got everything good in life, while he lost everything. He's a better person than I will ever be. I don't deserve any of what I have."

For a moment, she stared at him in stunned silence, trying to process if she'd actually said that out loud. She didn't even know she actually felt that, though she knew it was true (not that she was admitting that, even to herself, at the moment). After that shocked second of what the fuckery, her hands balled into fists and she looked around for someone to punch before her eyes returned to Roddy. It's not like she suspected anything. It was more of a, you-saw-that-too kind of thing.

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-05 03:35 am UTC (link)

His lips formed a thin line and his eyes widened as she started going on about... what? But then he realized, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the table. He mentally kicked himself, swore in a few languages in his head, and balled one of his hands into a fist. He was an idiot. Whoops. Crap. дерьмо.

"Ahhh," he said as a long, low sigh, eyes still closed. He ran his hand up through his hair, in part to hide his face even more form her. "Sorry," he cleared his throat. "That was my fault. I sort of... bring out the guilt in people."

He kept scratching at his head, making his fair flop about slightly in places. "We can just... forget that happened, and change the subject back to Felix." Who Roddy had also once looked at for too long, not that he could remember what Felix had said either. Most of the things he heard were so personal they made no sense to him, and he generally forgot them later.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-05 03:45 am UTC (link)

If she kept getting hit by surprises like this, she was going to end up black and blue tonight. Another bout of surprised blinking ensued as she kept her eyes locked on Roddy after he explained.

"Wait, what?" Rylee narrowed her eyes dangerously at Roddy. And then he was saying forget it. "Yeah, no. Explain. Now. Cuz that, was bullshit." She leveled a look on him that dared him to avoid her demand and not expect to get pummeled into next week. She had no intention on dwelling on what she'd said, but she sure as hell wanted to know what had caused. Since, well, she'd probably be reeling from it for much too long now that it was out there and laid bare and all that.

Going back to talking about Felix like nothing had happened just wasn't going to work for her.

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-06 12:39 am UTC (link)

Well, he'd tried. Some times it was best to just pretend it never happened... not that the other person normally agreed with him. The first time was always the worst, too. He mentally kicked himself and finally opened his eyes to look up at her. Aaaaand she was glaring. He pulled his hand down from the back of his head and scratched the light scruff growing on his cheek. He felt like sighing but didn't.

"One of my... gifts?" that seemed like both the best and worst word for it. "When I accidentally keep eye contact for too long people sort of... admit something they feel guilty about. It's... it's awkward, every damn time," he said, frowning. He was a great advocate for people being open and honest with each other, but that only worked to the best advantage when they knew they'd be doing it. Roddy never wanted to force people to be honest with him. He certainly didn't want to hear it most of the time. "I am sorry, I just sort of got distracted and forgot to look away."

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-06 01:37 am UTC (link)

"Well, that is some shit kind of gift," Rylee grumbled, crossing her arms and continuing to glare at him. She did look a little less like she was going to pummel him, if that was any consolation.

The redhead finally looked off to the side a bit, obviously thinking. Well. She didn't really blame Roddy, though a forewarning about the truth zone would have been appreciated at their first introduction. When she finally looked up, she asked, "So, why didn't you become a lawyer? Or a judge, or a cop or something? Sit you in a courtroom and every criminal would be confessing."

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-06 03:32 am UTC (link)

He looked away from her pretty quickly, looking at the table between them which was pretty clean, with a sort of streak across it when the light it it a certain way, probably from a quick wipe down after the last time it was cleared. He did sigh this time. "Yeah it's... not the best. Not what I would've picked for myself." Not that he would have picked his spear, either. The luck he liked, though, this ability to just be extra lucky on Tuesdays, that worked for him. He appreciated that. Not that it made up for the other stuff... like his leg... He frowned slightly, at that streak across the table.

"Uh, well... my dad's a judge. And... he tried. Believe me, he did everything he could to get me into Harvard," Roddy said, not really wanting to give her his life story (it always seemed so self-absorbed) but she had asked. "And since I was eighteen I decided to not go to college and become a cameraman instead." He said it with a shrug. Somehow 'because my parents wanted me to' seemed like the perfect explanation for not doing something. "But I do work at the UN, so, really, I see the world's worst dictators and schmucks on a daily basis anyway, and I try, I just don't seem to ever be able to get them to say anything while the cameras are rolling." Roddy had long suspected that was because they often did not feel the guilt they deserved to.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-06 05:55 pm UTC (link)

Rylee watched him as he spoke, aware that he was staring at the table to avoid her eyes. It was nice of him to be considerate, but still, it was more like a curse. Most people looked each other in the eye when they talked.

"Damn," she said when he finished talking. "Well, keep trying. Just because it never worked before doesn't mean it won't someday, and one of those asshats will get what's coming to him, maybe."

The redhead fell silent for a moment, trying to think of something else to say. Her mind kept wandering over to what she'd said, and how true it was, and how much of an ass it made her. She acted like she didn't care, like everything was fine, and it really wasn't. She should be miserable. And act like it.

Pulling herself out of her gloomy musings for Roddy's sake (she had called him down here, after all), a thought struck her. "So, it's your mom? Who's a goddess?"

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-06 06:43 pm UTC (link)

He nodded, refusing to give up on getting those people to actually say something true in front of the world. Especially Putin. Roddy didn't like to play favorites, but dammit, it wanted to get Putin. It was almost a matter of pride at this point. His mind had started to go off on another angry little tirade about the Russian government when she asked if his mother was a goddess. His head snapped up as he looked at her, eyes visibly wide in surprise.

"Uh, no! No," he said, wondering what would make her think that. Because he'd said his father was a judge? That... okay, more life story. She seemed to be asking the right questions today, he needed to clarify things. "My father is Tyr, of the Norse pantheon. My parents, the Judge and his wife, are my adopted parents." It always felt strange now that he was an adult to admit to being adopted. It always seemed like a word applied to children, it felt strange to admit to it as an adult. Not that it was something he ever hid.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-06 09:39 pm UTC (link)

"Oh," Rylee said at first, her mind wandering a bit as she stirred her coffee. She'd always known that her mother wasn't around (not that she'd known she was a goddess till later), but she'd never had anyone else she'd called mother. It must be weird for those people who had a mortal "parent" and then also their actual divine parent. Especially if they were never told they were adopted, or well... Hm. Some situations could be on Jerry Springer then, huh? Not really Roddy's situation, though.

"Do you know what happened to your mother? Have you met her?" Also, she needed to look up Tyr now. Cuz she was curious. She didn't have Roddy's DNA, and had no thought to swipe a sample. He'd become her friend before the thought crossed her mind.

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-06 10:09 pm UTC (link)

He scratched at the side of his face again. They were talking about him a lot, which was a little weird. It felt rude, and, well, it just never seemed to be a good topic of discussion. It was hard to explain it without just being really, really depressing, and he didn't think Rylee had asked him here in order to depress her. But he couldn't very well not answer her, and sometimes it was best to get this sort of thing out of the way before she went on forming ideas about him that just weren't true.

So Roddy cleared his throat. "Yeah, I knew her. I was seven when the government took custody. The Bonnimans adopted me when I was twelve. So," he sighed, "I've actually been in the United States longer than I was in Russia." He smiled slightly, as if he were proud of that in a way a lot of people born US citizens might not understand. He remembered when the years had tipped in America's favor. It had felt surreal at the time, but seemed to make more sense now.

He also hoped he'd said enough that she'd forget about the question of what happened to his mother. A lot of adopted children and families would have referred to her as his biological mother, or birth mother. Roddy did not. He called her his mother. And he had no idea what had become of her, but he bet it wasn't good.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-06 10:31 pm UTC (link)

"Oh," Rylee said when he explained he'd been taken into state custody. That sucked. "If Matt hadn't been 18, I would have ended up in foster care." And wanted to take care of her. What 18 year old guy wants to look after his baby sister? Half-sister. And really, a baby. Matt was seriously the best man she'd ever known.

"I'm sorry. What was wrong with her?" Ok, so it probably wasn't polite to ask these questions, but Roddy wasn't looking particularly distressed, so it seemed like he'd adjusted well enough to answer them without too much emotional pain. So it seemed, anyway.

And so maybe she had asked him here to have a good time. But, even she could recognize a serious moment, a moment when two people were making a question. Just cuz they weren't laughing and shooting the shit didn't mean it wasn't a good thing.

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occupycatacombs
2012-04-07 02:56 am UTC (link)

Roddy's knowledge of Matt was essentially everything that she'd said since he sat down. His face softened a bit, though he wasn't really looking at her. She had something about Matt losing everything while she still had her mother and him, hadn't she? And now it seemed like he was someone that had taken care of her, probably loved her quite dearly. Roddy wasn't about to say it, it sounded mushy and he had a feeling Rylee wasn't big on mushy, but it seemed to Roddy that this Matt fellow had not lost everything, because while she had him, he had her as well.

He shrugged. "She drank. Started after she lost her job, just sort of never stopped. I was in and out for awhile, finally they just took me." He scratched the back of his head again and leaned back in his chair to look at her a little more fully. "But then I was adopted by two rather wealthy and important people, went to a good school and now work for the UN." He finished off the story smiling, skipping over the few weeks he'd spent in Iraq.

He paused. "You probably would have survived foster care fine." In case she was curious, or worried. After that he wasn't sure. Fights were frequent where he had been, but the ones that fought never seemed to be able to straighten themselves out.

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geneticbrawl
2012-04-07 03:09 am UTC (link)

"Oh. I'm sorry." See, Rylee knew socially acceptable responses. Though, she really was sorry that he had a crappy life with his mother. She imagined it was pretty painful and confusing to a kid. Though, she smiled in response to his smile. Fairy tale ending. Except for the leg, which she still didn't know about. Another time.

His sudden assurance made her pause, and she looked at him with her cool blue eyes. She wasn't so sure. She had been a quiet kid. Learning to fight, from Matt, gave her strength, and not just in the physical sense. She could right wrongs, and she had to learn early where her moral compass pointed. And that had been all Matt. Instead, she just shrugged. "Maybe. But I think it's different to be with family. To be with people who care about you, not just look after you." See? Family wasn't blood, only. It was how they felt about you. And sure, Matt was blood, but it was more than that.

Her curiosity sated for now, she sipped at her coffee, and then asked her original question. "So, Felix. How do you know him?"

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