InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Maybe he's agoraphobic?"

Troy Bolton (t_bolton) wrote in omega_reality,
@ 2012-04-17 08:39:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2012 04, character: g callen, character: sam hanna, character: troy bolton

RP: Troy, Callen, Sam
Who: Troy, Callen, Sam
Where: Training center
When: right after morning training, April 17, 2012
Summary: Troy figures out that it's time to talk to the people who know what they are doing.

After Sunday night, Troy had been thinking about what to do. He wanted to speak with John, but he decided that it could wait for a few days more. Talking to Callen and Sam was more important, because he didn't have much time before school started, and he wasn't joking when he said that between school, flying, homework there would be little time for anything else. Talking to them was also something that could easily be avoided, because it wasn't like they spent anytime outside of training together.

It was time, though. He couldn't come up with excuses day after day. Or probably he could, but he wasn't helping anyone, so he told Sean that he'd join them for lunch late and after training, he went to Callen. "Hey, do you think you and Sam have a minute for me before lunch? If not, it's cool."

Troy watched as Callen just looked at him and then at Sam, and he decide that those two had some kind of power, because Sam said something to Deeks and then joined them, and how the fuck he knew was something that Troy would never understand. He also didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Instead he waited until everyone was out. Of course, people cleared out pretty quick.

"So... this is going to sound crazy, at least Sean thinks so, and if you guys have too much on your plate, I completely understand, but-" Right, this was the part about asking about extra training without knowing what he even needed to improve on, other than everything. "Would you consider starting training half an hour early? Maybe split days? Or even a day each? I'll take whatever I can get." He realized that he hadn't really explained. "I mean for personal instruction, not the whole group. You know when you said that joking about training makes it look like I don't care? That's never been the case, but it's training to escape, to get out of here alive, you know? then Sean said something-" And panic set in, but that part wasn't really necessary to make his point. "Anywhere, extra training."

Sam crossed his arm as he stared at Troy for a moment. "Extra training about what exactly?"

"Everything?" Troy said.

"Right, that's clearly what we can do in half an hour," Sam said with a snort.

Troy opened his arm in surrender. "I don't know. I know that I can train; I can do what you say. I can have muscles I didn't know existed hurt. I just don't know how to translate that into 'oh look, we're going for a ride, we might have to kill someone'. It just doesn't compute. I fly a plane, I never thought I'd be there to help someone in a gun fight, but I don't want to be the reason someone else dies, and especially not anyone in Sean's family, and before you give me the speech about we're all human being and we help each other, I still care about him more, not that I want anyone dead because of me. And then there's that little problem that I can't shoot... I mean I can, it's just... not very accurate which wouldn't matter if we'd be shooting at target instead of moving people with friends all around. So yeah, I don't know guys. Whatever you can do, if you can, or even tell me what to do and I'll do it myself. I don't mind training on my own."

(Post a new comment)

g_callen
2012-04-17 04:09 pm UTC (link)

G was quiet as he turned over everything the kid was saying in his head, putting together the pieces with guesswork of his own to get a better picture of exactly what they were dealing with here. It was strangely reminiscent of the morning Savannah had shown up on their doorstep declaring she wanted to be just like G, only without quite as much of the emotional attachment.

And, really, if Bolton was only just now figuring out things he should have figured out the moment he started training as Robert's copilot, he deserved a little of the discomfort he was exhibiting.

Whether or not he had the time wasn't really a consideration for G. He'd make the time if Bolton was serious about wanting to work. It wasn't often they got requests for extra training from anyone and G wasn't about to discourage Bolton from doing it by refusing. Of course, first they needed to nail down what Bolton needed.

"We can train with you on the physical requirements. Sam can teach you every move in pretty much any book one cares to write on the subject. I can take you out to the range and work with you on your aim until you can hit a man between the eyes when that's all of his face that's visible behind the hostage he's holding in front of him. Together we can give you every personal security protocol known to man. But, that won't teach you how to think or see, how to make things 'compute'."

He cast a glance at Sam, considering how to handle this. "What if we do it this way?" He turned his gaze back on Bolton with a nod. "0615 Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday you show up at our place for sparring. Sometimes it'll be one or both of us with you. Sometimes I might ask Deeks to join us. Forty-five minutes. Then you need a break and breakfast before going to Defense at 0730. Thursday and Friday mornings you take off because you're working with us late on Thursdays being ready is making sure you're rested enough to think straight." Irony, table for one. "And I mean you take them off. No working on your own. We'll split the hour you spend with me Thursday nights between working on your power and working on the range.

"That will take care of the physical skills. Training in how to think is going to be a little less...conventional. For now, we'll do two things. First, you're with me for every shopping trip off this ranch. When we're out, I want you observing everything and everyone around us. I want a verbal report in the field any time you see something that could be a security issue: people who could be carrying, places for ambushers to hide, blind spots, everything we go over in fieldwork training. Just being able to shoot isn't going to do a bit of good if you never see the enemy coming. The second thing is that I'll give you a similar observation assignment at the end of each Thursday night session, things for you to pay attention to and report on the following week."

There was another glance at Sam for confirmation whether his partner was onboard for this or not. "Does that work for everyone? Actually," he added, looking at Bolton again, "I'll add a third that isn't a training assignment, so much as an admonition. Every time you strap on your holster and carry your gun, be prepared to use it. No matter where you are. Here on the ranch, in Phoenix shopping, or on the plane. If you're not prepared to use the weapon you're carrying, you might as well hand it over to an enemy for all the good it's going to do you or anyone else."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

t_bolton
2012-04-17 06:34 pm UTC (link)

Callen was going a lot faster than Troy had thought this would go. Half an hour early seemed good enough, and now they were talking about getting up at six, going shopping, guns, watching people and 'computing', which made him want to bang his head on the wall, and yet when he opened his mouth to answer, it wasn't a 'no' or even a joke. Instead he just stared at the two and said, "Sean is going to kill me."

"Better him than someone else," Sam said, calmly.

"Right, 6:15, that's... it's fine. I'll just blame you and he can kill you instead," he answered with a smile as he got his wits back. "All right, but range at 9:30? I can't even get it right when I can see, not that it matters, because I was talking to Sean and figured out what I do wrong." Not that knowing it helped. "That's actually the next think I wanted to talk to you." And John, but again that would be done some other day. "I don't even know if there's anything to talk about. It's just- I'm all ready, you know? The shot is lined up." His hands mimicked the gun and position without thinking. "And then I'm shooting and boom my eyes are off the target before the trigger is pressed."

Sam looked at G and then back at Troy. "So you thought to train better because this way you can defend yourself without a gun." He wasn't surprised when Troy nodded. "Except it's not easier. We can train you to defend yourself; we can teach how to shoot; we can even teach you how to think like us, but you have to find the ability to kill within yourself, and don't think for a moment that a gun is harder than hand-to-hand. These are trained soldiers, they are as good as I am, but even if they weren't, it's not easy to listen to a man die while you're suffocating him or listening for that crack that says you just broke his neck. A gun is cleaner and easier at least on the spot." Later, he'd have to deal with the aftermath like everyone else.

"And what if I can't?" he asked honestly, because this was the part where he got lost. "Maybe that's why I forget my gun as my times as I have it when it's not training. How do you raise your gun look at a person in the eyes and shoot? What did you tell yourself when you pressed that trigger for the first time?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

g_callen
2012-04-17 10:11 pm UTC (link)

"If you can't find it in yourself to kill someone, even in defense of yourself or others?" G clarified. "You or someone you're defending will die, or at the least be gravely wounded. And I'm not saying that to be harsh or frighten you needlessly. It's just a fact of the situation we're in. If you hesitate to shoot, there's no second chance. Someone, be it yourself, Sean, Nell, whomever, is going to be shot by that enemy instead because they won't hesitate. They have the training, the experience, and the orders necessary to do their job efficiently and without immediate remorse."

G was tempted to say he couldn't remember his first kill. But, it would be a bald-faced lie and he didn't lie to his team. You always remembered that first kill. Still... "There isn't a lot of time to tell yourself anything in the moment. Not when it comes down to a full-on firefight and the most you have time for is to shoot and duck and keep track of both your ammo and the number of people shooting at you. You're thinking of your aim. Is he down? Was someone on your team hit? Is that another shooter hiding behind those crates just out of range? Where the hell is your extraction team? Why the fuck did I think joining up was a good idea when I could have been an accountant with a cushy office job?

"But, in that moment, it still comes down to you either shoot or freeze and if you freeze, you're probably dead, or the guy next to you whose wife just had a kid is dead. In the end, for me, it was survival instinct. I just did what I had to in order to survive and didn't think about the rest until after."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

t_bolton
2012-04-17 10:27 pm UTC (link)

"So basically train, train, train some more and then hope that you can kill." Right, talking to John just went up his to-do list. Troy cracked a smile. "Except you were crazy enough to join up, while I wanted to smile the cameras with a very cushy job."

Sam sighed. "And we chose to do this for a living, and this is why our motivations can never be yours. For me, it was different. I had a team, a mission. You train for six months, doing the same thing over and over and over. They even build the same house you'll go into, and you just do that for months. By the time we got oversea, there was no room for thinking. You knew where everyone was and just shot everything that moved. Never saw their faces, never stopped to check if they were breathing. You know that you got your target and you move on, you get the hostage, you get out. To me, it was never about killing people, but saving lives and protecting Americans everywhere."

"I'm pretty sure that's what the people with the rifles told themselves when they came into our houses," he muttered, before shaking his head. "All right, let's do it your way. Still range at 9:30?" He cracked another smile when he looked at Callen. "And are you sure we can survive so much time together without you killing me? But as I said, I'm willing to do what you say, and if I don't show up to training, blame Mr. V."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

g_callen
2012-04-18 01:46 am UTC (link)

"Still range at 2130," G replied with a smirk, knowing the 'civilians' thought using the twenty-four hour time designations was strange and weird. "For now. See if your accuracy improves if you can't see what you're shooting as clearly." His smirk deepened as Bolton went on. "Killing you would be too easy, a little bit of pain and then you escape your torment. I have much worse punishments in my arsenal.

"Sunday dinner."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

t_bolton
2012-04-18 02:55 am UTC (link)

"That might actually work," he said with a snort although he doubted it. If he was this bad when he saw the target, he couldn't imagine how worse it got at night.

Troy shook his head. "No way, man. I'm sleeping all day on Sunday, watching the sport of the season on TV and then having sex before going back to sleep."

Sam shook his head. "You do remember that I'm Sean's father, right?"

Troy grinned. "Of course I do. It's not like I was giving you details. I was giving you my schedule. It's different. And I was pointing out that Sunday is when you sleep sixteen hours and vegetate the other eight. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone," Sam repeated. "And we don't need knowledge that 'everyone' knows, we can go have lunch and we'll see you after you tell Sean when the alarm is going off. That's already punishment." The banter was fun, but he wanted to make sure that G ate before an afternoon of training. "Come on, G. Time for lunch."

(Reply to this) (Parent)