hector chasse. (![]() ![]() @ 2015-11-17 06:28:00 |
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Entry tags: | hector chasse |
WHO: Hector Chasse & guest.
WHAT: That ISSP arrest garners unwanted attention.
WHEN: After the Kamikaze crew's release.
WHERE: Mars, outside the ISSP station.
WARNINGS: Swearing, implied past violence.
The reddish haze of a Martian sunset was bright in Hector's eyes as the Kamikaze crew finally made their way out of the ISSP station. He held his uninjured hand up against the light (uninjured was relative; his knuckles felt sandy and swollen, joints taken too many hits in their day) and followed their captain down the front steps, towards the street. The noise and the crowd was familiar, replacing the stale air inside the station with a blanket of white sensation that was strangely comforting, after the claustrophobia behind bars. It didn't matter how many times he left Mars and came back, how many other colonies he visited, how long he'd lived on the Kamikaze: there was a part of him that would always feel like this place was home. Maybe it was that familiarity, that too-close-to-the-skin familiarity that set his hair on end. More than just the hustle of the crowd, the air, the sun. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the crowd. He saw her, then. A lone figure standing sentinel at the bottom of the steps, just shy of street level. She was hard to miss, head and shoulders above the crowd. Regal, powerful, the subject of more than one person's curiosity. It wasn't often that they saw someone from television simply waiting by the street like a normal person, instead of behind a podium giving press packets. Reaching out, he set his hand briefly on Bristol's shoulder, voice low as he passed. "I'll catch up." Hector angled a path down the steps, away from the crew. He came to a halt two steps above her, crossing his arms over his chest. She mirrored him. "Miranda." "Hector." His older sister studied him with her hawk-sharp eyes, taking in every detail: the bruise on his cheek from a baton, the torn sleeve wrapped into a makeshift bandage around his forearm, his unshaven jaw, unkempt clothing from a night spent in lock-up. And in turn, he swept his gaze across her: long, dark hair perfectly waved and set, pantsuit pressed to crisp lines, the straight bridge of her nose as imperious as ever. The ostentatious diamond of her wedding ring glittered red in the light on her darkly manicured fingers. This close, he was satisfied to realize that she'd had work done. Good work, but a certain noticeable tightness at her mouth and eyes nonetheless to smooth the wrinkles, to wind back the clock. She looked barely his age. "Don't you have more important things to be doing than standing here?" Hector asked. Her fingers drummed impatiently against her forearm. "What happened?" "We're here on a bounty. Someone called in an ISSP raid to waylay us. Things got out of hand." His words were clipped, voice terse. He met her gaze and refused to blink first. "You should know better than to make a scene on Mars, Hec. Word gets around." "Believe it or not," he delivered each word with delicate deliberation, "I'm here trying to do my job, Miranda, not think about the family's reputation. It's not my problem." Her mouth curled upward at the corner. "Yes, your little occupation. You might be able to comprehend how your job, while I'm sure it's very important to you, doesn't quite compare to the difficulties and challenges of running a multi-trillion woolong corporate entity." "Not my problem," Hector ground out. "I don't give a fuck about your job, Hec. If you can't stay out of trouble, at least do us the courtesy of calling us so that we can get a lawyer down to the station immediately and keep the matter quiet. This isn't about you. It's about your complete and utter disregard for the family's —" "Do you really want to do this right now?" he demanded, nostrils flared heatedly to match her barely-smothered temper. "We can go around and around in circles for the rest of our lives if you want, having the same fucking argument on our deathbeds about who disrespected who first, but I just got out of that station." He jabbed his finger up the stairs in the direction he'd come from. "We're most likely fucked on our bounty, so that's a million woolongs gone, out the hatch. I smell like ten drunks marinating in their own vomit, I have a splitting headache, some fucking lunatic tried to bite a chunk out of my arm, and I'm not in the mood to rehash old history with you. You delivered your message, Miranda. Go tell our parents you did their errands, and let me get back to my ship." Her lips were tight. "I should smack the shit out of you, you know." "You haven't been able to beat me since I was eight," Hector sneered at her. "Go on, try it. I'd bet these people would love to watch the CRO of Chasse Pharma brawl with a Killjoy in the street." "A Killjoy, that's right," his sister snorted. "I always forget you're a sanctioned thug, now. Do you only waste your time on targets where you can murder someone? Or do you still get your reward if your bounty is in a coma? I imagine the the cost of feeding them through a tube might come out of your paycheck." His battered hands curled at his sides. "Please, Hec, you can't even make a fist right now." Miranda cocked her head with a condescending smile. "Go heel to your captain. I'll tell mother and father you send your love." She turned, paused, and glanced over her shoulder at him one last time. "Happy birthday." Despite the noise of the street, he could hear her heels clicking on the stone steps as she walked away. It sounded like thin bones snapping beneath her feet. |