Alisha "mad-eye brooky" Brooks (knockings) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-07-31 00:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, alisha brooks, joey tamatoa, tim evans |
WHO: Alisha Brooks [KNOCKOUT] & Tim Evans [ION] (and a cameo by Joey Tamatoa)
WHAT: Ion & Knockout have it out, after this conversation
WHEN: Backdated to mid-July
WHERE: Capers
WARNINGS: Swears
Day drinking isn't a good sign, Alisha, is what her father would have said. Well, no. Not really. The problem with it was that Alisha didn't know what her father would have said. The only reason she knew her parents drank at all, and that her father's favorite drink was a seven and seven (the same as was sitting in front of her) was because she asked her aunt once upon a time. She could nurse his favorite drink, she could think back to the things he once said to her. She could remember the gravelly tone of his voice, a sharp contrast from the melodic voice of her mother, but it would never be the same as him being there. She'd never know what he would have been like when she got old enough to be a friend as much as a daughter. To have an adult relationship with her parents, get to know them as people and not just parents. All because of some asshole metas with delusions of grandeur. Metas who liked to forget the 'human' part of 'metahuman.' People like Anderson and Shade and Montagne, and now apparently even Paul. That was why she was at Capers so early in the day, early enough [the bartender] was still cleaning glasses and cutting up limes for later in the evening. She couldn't stop thinking about work, but she sure as hell couldn't handle thinking about anything else: the inane babble about what event was coming up or what food they wanted to eat seemed to be annoying her more than usual. Alisha knew it was unreasonable, but that didn't make it any easier to watch people have normal conversations when APEX seemed to be getting closer and closer. She sighed, reaching for the menu off the table to see what time she could start ordering bar snacks. Second lunch had been a whole hour ago. Tim had never been much of a drinker. When he was younger, it'd been fear -- fear of losing control, of hurting someone, or hurting everyone. But good friends had helped him find his calm, to forget that, to loosen up and... well, he'd found he just had never much cared for it. Much as it might make the anxiety slip away, just that little bit, he didn't like the fogginess that came with it. But times like these seemed like times for a drink, didn't they? Times like these, it felt like it was called for. Truth told, he wasn't sure what else he could do. He'd made his way down to Capers alone, taking the walk from their apartment to clear his head. He knew he could've talked to Lucy -- that he probably should have talked to Lucy, or Dr. Montgomery, or anyone, really -- but he followed his feet without thinking much on it, enjoying the few minutes between the fourth and second floor. Somehow, he'd convinced himself he could get time alone in the bar, forgetting the fact that everyone knew everyone, that the bartenders were always the same, that there was bound to be someone he knew waiting there -- and there Alisha was. Sitting alone, drinking alone, and looking like she'd been doing so even earlier than he was planning. We're team leaders, Ion. We can't let our emotions blind us. She was right, he knew, but that didn't make it easier. Emotions might be blinding, but gut instincts were there for a reason. And if she was calling him by codename, if she was fighting so hard to avoid her emotions, it meant she had the same gut feeling as him, didn't it? The same pain. It’d certainly led them to the same, Capers-based solution. "Hey," he said softly, coming up to the seat beside her. "Is, um... Anyone sitting here?" "You are." The woman pushed the chair beside her back slightly with her foot, as if to invite him in. Tim looked tired; not the same type of tired that most of the other Operatives had from working extra shifts, but the sort of inner exhaustion that came from tragedy. She wondered if it was written on her face as well. "Here," she said, waving over Joey. "What are you having? My treat." Tim managed a smile, even if it was a weak one, and gave her a bit of a nod before sitting down, and looking up to the bartender. “Just a beer. Whatever you have on tap, I don’t… yeah.” He’d never been particular; probably came with the territory of not being much of a drinker, really, and he turned back toward Alisha with another nod. “Thanks,” he said softly. “How… how’s it going?” Silence hung in the air for a moment before, with what seemed like too much effort, Alisha finally gave a shrug. "It's good. It's— good." The last word rung with an air of finality, as if she was making a decision and finally settled on it. "We had a success at the lab. We got some information from Montagne. APEX is still banging down our door but we're making headway against them. Things are good." She paused. "Other than…. you know." Tim nodded as she spoke. “Yeah. All except… you know.” The longer the investigation dragged on, the more he wondered if it’d ever end. He was exhausted, and he’d already gone through his own interrogation, had told them again and again the same things he’d said, to everyone who’d mentioned it: Paul wouldn’t do this. Xray wouldn’t do that. Something had to be wrong, didn’t it? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then another, until the tightness in his chest subsided. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel real. Sometimes it feels too real.” Beside him, Alisha didn't say anything until after Joey came by with Tim's beer and another seven and seven for her. She hadn't asked for it but she took it anyway, swirling the liquid around in the Collins glass slightly before taking a sip. When the bartender was finally out of earshot she shifted slightly, eyes trained on the table in front of her. "I don't like being betrayed," she said icily. He didn’t respond, at first, instead taking a sip of his beer and letting her voice ring in his ears. Betrayed. Tim swallowed, and kept his gaze focused on the glass in his hand. Betrayed. “You think he did it, then?” He asked finally. “That he really was one of them?” "Yes." She pressed her lips together. "I mean, I'm certainly not stubborn enough to say there was no way." “You knew Paul,” Tim replied, looking over at her. “How could there be a way? He was… Paul wouldn’t.” Her head snapped up and she stared at him, eyes wide and boring into him. "Maybe we didn't know him that well. X-Ray was a trained Agent, she wouldn't kill him without a reason. What if he was? We knew him, but did we really know him? Maybe he had us wrapped around his finger right where he wanted us and then — BAM." She slapped the bar in front of her. Five years of Operative training and all the experience he had since then, and the bang of her hand hitting the bartop was still enough to make Tim flinch and a spark of plasma to pop in his free hand. He bit his lip, forced the anxious knot in his stomach down. Some day he wouldn’t be so easy to make jump, apparently not today. “She could’ve made a mistake,” he said slowly, calmly. “He could’ve done something that made her think it, made her believe it, but we did know him.” His voice grew firmer, and she shook his head. “We practically watched him grow up, dammit. We knew him, we know he wouldn’t have ever joined those bastards.” Alisha's head shook slightly as he spoke, the corners of her eyes creasing. "Wake up, Paul— I mean, Tim!" She stumbled a little over the words, eyes widening at her mistake, but when she spoke again her words were firmer and stronger. "He fucking played us. He got close to us and he used us just to get into APEX. Stop being so blind." Tim stared at her dumbly for a moment. “How could you think that?” He finally managed, an edge to his own voice in response. “I’m not the one who’s blind here. You’re the one just buying what they’re telling us. Paul wouldn’t go rogue. Ever.” "No? You've been here, what, over a decade now? You know what it's like, how so many people here think that just because they have to live here and can't waste their lives drinking PBRs on the roof of some shitty Bucktown apartment every night that the DMS is evil. I can't imagine there aren't plenty of people who think APEX has the right idea about some things. You and I are team leaders, so we know what they're really like, but half the people here are idiots." Alisha rocked forward, putting her elbows on the table and resting her hands on her temples. " How— How do we know Paul wasn't listening to them?" “Because we know Paul.” Tim replied, trying to ignore the voice in his head that corrected him with a smug knew. He still wasn’t ready for the past tense, not yet. “He was about as likely to turn as me. As you. He didn’t have it in him to lie like that, and even if he did -- he was with us. He knew the right way of things. He was… good.” He swallowed, turned back to his beer. “And he would’ve grown to be great.” Her hands dug into her temples and finally she pulled them back, resting them shakily on her glass. "And now he's dead," she whispered, hanging her head and squeezing her eyes closed, trying to fight back the tears that she'd been so good at keeping locked up until now. Damn it, Tim. "I just… I don't know what's worse. The thought that he could have gone rogue, or that we failed him." The anger in Tim’s voice faded almost immediately when he heard the shift in hers, and along with the sorrow, the pain, he now had guilt in the mix in his heart. “I don’t know, either,” he said after a moment. “Either way, it hurts. I just… it isn’t fair. And that doesn’t mean anything, I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take.” Alisha put her head down, eyes squeezed closed for the longest time, then finally looked back up at Tim. She could see herself in the his eye, both in the glassy reflection and then again, deeper, echoing all the feelings she'd been pushing down for so long. There were so many things to say, but her breath hitched in her throat and instead Alisha downed the rest of her drink and pushed herself to her feet. "I have to go," she said, voice still shaky. It was easier to hide behind the wall she'd built, the one that said Paul had betrayed her, and she was already building it right back up, but Tim had seen the truth. And a wall, once torn down, is never as strong as it once was. Some part of him wanted to stop her, felt like he probably should -- but he glanced around the bar, knew Alisha deserved the dignity not to have her feelings aired out in public like that. If she wanted to go, that was her right, wasn’t it? “All right,” he said softly, looking down at his feet as she stood. “Just…” He bit his lip, nodded. “If you need… you know.” Tim looked up, saw the same cracks in her armor as he knew were in his, now. “You know where to find me, yeah?” Her hand rested on the back of the chair she'd just vacated and she paused, but she didn't — couldn't — look at him again. "I know." |