Re: Hayden and Jae
"Trust is a funny thing." Jae agreed. "Sort of a major thing with me. I'm definitely one of those types who don't give it back once it's been abused. But I haven't been fucked over by a relative, either, so that might be different." she mused. If it was a relative, that could be all the difference.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Hayden said. “Not that that helps much, but... I don’t know. I guess I thought it would all be okay in the end. And I was horribly wrong.” He’d been so wrapped up in his romance with Cassandra, that he hadn’t really examined the repercussions of what might happen. Once he had time for self reflection, he avoided the hard questions altogether. “So tell me something about yourself, since you now know my dirty little secret.”
Jae shrugged. "In my experience, betrayal is betrayal, whether you did it on purpose or not means fuck all. What matters is it happened. Couldn't give you much advice on the subject, beyond maybe owning it. Don't stick the pussy 'but I didn't mean it!' on the end. No offense, but you sound like an asshole when you say that. Like you're trying to make an excuse for something super shitty you did. No one wants to hear it. It won't like, make it any better, might just mean it irritates people all the more." she advised. "...and something about me?" She smirked at him. "I don't pull punches."
“No shit,” Hayden snorted, taking another sip of his drink. “I actually feel worse about hurting my brother than for robbing someone.” He felt like it mattered because, well, if he’d meant to hurt his brother, then he definitely didn’t deserve to be forgiven. Maybe Hayden just wanted people to know he wasn’t that kind of an asshole, but he supposed that just made him an idiot instead. What was he thinking? Looking back on it, he was just ashamed of himself, especially now that he knew what kind of girl Cassandra really was. How had he not seen it? “That’s all you’re gonna give me? At least tell me where you’re from.”
"Eh. Course you do. Robbing people, that's not up close and personal. Your brother? That's personal. I'd think less of you if you didn't have your emotions in that order.'' she admitted. "And ah. The inevitable 'where are you from' question. The dumb answer is 'everywhere'. I was a military brat. Moved all over hells half acre and more, so, I'm from everywhere and nowhere in particular."
At least he wasn’t the only one that saw the worse crime as being what he’d done to his brother, but if the lesser warranted all these years in prison, how long would it take to get Hunter back? It wasn’t exactly promising. “It seemed like a more socially acceptable question than ‘what’re you in for’,” Hayden grinned. “Any place you call home?”
“But ‘what are you in for’ is so much more interesting.” Jae said. “And wherever my family is, I guess. And by family, I could me several families, so I guess I’m lucky that I’ve got a bunch of them to choose from.” she said, shrugging.
That was a good enough answer, he supposed, without telling him much at all. Except that she had several families, which he wasn’t sure how to decipher. “Okay, so what’re you in for, since we’re there and you already know about me.”
Jae laughed. "Technically, I got slapped with the 'terrorist' label. Which, by the way, is not what I am." she clarified immediately. "But that's what you get when you and a team of mercs you're with are in the middle of massive international incident fodder and there are bodies on the floor when the dust settles." She looked out over the party goers, sounding lighter about it than she actually felt.
“Wait, what?” Hayden laughed, though he was confused by her explanation. “So you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” As far as he could tell, everyone that was in the RRI had an interesting story and seemed, well, pretty normal. It was weird. He’d gone from barely talking and keeping to himself, to chatting up everyone who crossed his path.