001 ✪ video/audio

[redactions]

Who: Jim Barnes
Broadcast: Fleetwide video + audio
Action: Iskaulit.
When: August 20th.


[ The video flicks on to a spacious room, spans it from left to right, then top to bottom. There's a door off to the right side, and the camera follows it to the adjoining room, similarly large. Again, left to right, top to bottom. Both rooms are spic and span, empty, with wooden floors. And then it switches to audio. The voice is brusque, but amiable, with a moderate Brooklyn drawl. ]

Nice place for a gym. There could be a dojo next door, so it's all in one place. I've got a few sandbags to hang up, and some mats we could use. There's a notice outside for schedules — I know a lot of you folks have been offering training. The room's big enough, and there's plenty more like it on this ship.

Anybody else interested?



[ Anyone wandering the Iskaulit or looking for Bucky after the broadcast will find him humming as he puts up the sandbags. He's dressed very simply in the ship's jumpsuit, with no left sleeve. The left arm whirs in tune as he works. ]

Comments

[ action ]

[touchofrogue]

[She honestly has no idea what he's talking about. She doesn't know his past, has tried not to make assumptions. She's put a few things together... but even that doesn't grant insight to depth of what he is expressing.

She knows that she touched him and he told her not to. She knows that she was telling him not to try to take on responsibility for the people in her world who are frequently idiots and morons but who sometimes surprise her with the depth of their compassion and forgiveness and willingness to extend a chance to someone as thoroughly twisted and dangerous as she is.

Her posture doesn't change, but her face shifts, expression reflecting her bewilderment held together at the seems with self-recrimination and loathing.

What had she done wrong this time?

She glances at his hand briefly, and doesn't understand that either.]

I don't understand what just happened here. [Finally, quietly, low notes of frustration with an edge of pain in her voice.] I don't know where I went that ya don't want me ta go.

[Usually, she'd just leave it there -- but he was giving her so little, she tries to work out the options out loud.] If ya can't just tell me that, then I sure can't make you any promises. I was tellin' you the truth as I see it. I can't not do that - I won't not do that. But if you're mad 'cause I touched you, then I'm sorry, an' I won't do that again.

[Her posture does shift, now. It's a simple fluid motion where she doesn't actually step back, but somehow becomes so contained within her space that it appears, feels, as if she's put two steps of distance between them. It is not the sort of thing that could be done casually - that much awareness of space takes practice. And she's had twelve years of it.]

[ action ]

[redactions]

[ His shoulders drop. It's the note of pain that's piercing, the way she contains herself so smoothly and abruptly — she's not somebody he's supposed to hurt. Himself, the enemy, those are acceptable targets. Not people who've been nothing but kind, and Rogue's only wanted the best for him. Which means getting over himself. Easier said than done. Self-pity is easy. After a long time in an inferno he's become inferno. ]

I got hurt, tryin' t'carry it all. You tried to follow me down there.

[ To pull him out. It's what friends do. (He doesn't want to be pulled out.) ]

I'm sorry, sweetheart. Do you think we could [ he presses his mouth into a thin, unhappy line ] put this away and look at it later?

[ action ]

[touchofrogue]

[Rogue's brow furrowed, following what he said, what he did - the drop of his shoulders, the actual admitting of pain...

She thought she understood what he meant, a little. She'd been closer to the truth than she knew, and had gone in with all the tact of a bull in a china shop.

She knew what it was like to walk around with exposed nerves and have others stumble into them... worse when they thought they were doing good.

The enforced sense of space around her didn't really ease, though the set of her shoulders relaxed subtly.

She gave him a small, slow smile.] I reckon I can do that, yeah. Best I can, anyway, [Honestly forces her to modify her answer. She glances away from him and her shoulders take on a determined set.] Wanna keep goin'?

[Looking for that private room, or... anything else, really. This was his chance right to bail if he so desired, and she was giving it to him for free.]

[ action ]

[redactions]

[ One day, when he's not raw and she's not built herself into a castle, he'll ask why it's so bad that she touched him. He figured she doesn't like it, maybe. Some people just don't, but it seems... far deeper with her. Like the very air around her is poisonous, and she's monstrous for existing. ]

[ He... knows a little of what that's like. ]

Yeah, let's keep lookin'. Plenty a'space.