[ he's not bothering with inboxing at all. what's the point, dagger monitors all the conversations anyway, and he doubts gliese isn't capable of the same. this is exactly the sort of thing red keeps an eye out for. what they were looking for on their last missions, when they monitored the crew.
jack does a quick, pissed, march to d'artagnan's quarters, doesn't bother asking to be let past the fake door thing, and comes straight up to him only to abruptly smack the blackglass out of his hand, sending it skidding across the floor. ] What the fuck do you think you're doing?
[ there's more anger in it than just frustration he'd been expecting to be there. ] How many other people have tried to talk to you already? You don't honestly think inboxing the conversation means Dagger or Gliese aren't hovering over it any less, do you? Or even this?
[ they monitor the entire crew constantly. jack doesn't know how, but he knows they see everything that happens - every conversation, every action, no matter where. he grips the front of d'artagnan's clothes, shaking him as he drags him up from wherever he's sitting. ] It's not just you or your distant planet you're putting in the crosshairs, d'Artagnan. You remember when I came back from Gliese's rover on Ajna, right? What do you think that was for, a fucking tea party?
[ maybe that's part of it, why he's so angry. he could never really hold what happened so much against michelle, but the anger's still there - for the pain itself, for what he'd been reduced to, for the damage there's still left with him. it's the idea that anyone puts someone they care about through that just for this moral complications that makes him feel furious. his view on this place has always been different than people like d'artagnan, michelle and david. he'd already come from a life that taught him 'damn your soul for what's greater than you are'. that's what the cdc is to him, and that's what undergoing torture with gliese, for michelle, was. ]
[ Before d'Artagnan can even react to Jack being in the room, his blackglass has skittered across the floor and he's being lifted and shaken. Instinctively his hands go around Jack's wrists, trying to prise him off and not succeeding. ]
What am I doing?! What's the matter with you?! I didn't inbox anyone!
[ He didn't. They'd inboxed him. He hadn't had a problem with saying what he did in public, hadn't seen what was wrong with it.
He is angry. He's angry for Optimus, for his death, for all the deaths that have happened here and how powerless he's been to stop them. He's angrier still, knowing how close he'd come to that same fate. People like Jack had talked him into killing the Shai, and if he hadn't done it, they would have done that same thing to him. Even then, he'd almost walked away. Now they have to go to this new world and do it all over again, except that the species there won't just have potential. The file says so. They have culture. They have language. They have beliefs.
And none of it will matter because he'll have to make himself kill them and if he doesn't, he'll be another Optimus.
And Garrus had been right, for all that d'Artagnan had been incensed with him for saying so. It won't just be him to suffer. It'll be his team. His friends. The people he loves.
Jack, who's already been hurt enough, even though d'Artagnan knows less than half of what's happened to him here. His hand comes up, taking hold of Jack's jacket at the collar. His jaw is set, a line of tension that doesn't ever leave, even when that muscle in his cheek twitches. ]
I don't know. I never knew.
So you tell me, Jack, what was it for? What did she do to you?
Because Michelle ran her mouth off to Neheda, and even after she was warned about punishment I would have to take, she selfishly kept on.
[ he grinds it out, and surprises himself, in a way, with how much venom is in it. he'd never really let go of this. just told michelle it's fine, it's fine, trying to pascify her. he knows she hadn't really meant to get him hurt, and that she simply hadn't taken it seriously, but it still sticks in jack like a thorn. ]
Because with the morally righteous, it's too damn important to raise your nose and condemn, regardless of who suffers for it.
[ there's an old bitterness in that. watching david sacrifice one thing after another for what's right and finding himself both unable to hold that integrity, and incapable of watching a righteous act without seeing the cost assigned to it. ]
Your words damn the others around you.
[ his voice quiets, but loses none of its intensity. ]
Keep going like this, and someone you love will end up in the same place. [ a beat. ] Maybe Athos, maybe me. Maybe Hanna, and God as my fucking witness, d'Artagnan, if your foolishness gets Hanna hurt, I'll personally make sure correction for that selfishness is paid to the right person.
[ he seethes it out in the way he would to someone standing in his way in the shiloh - in how he'd spoken to david, that night behind enemy lines. he doesn't truly mean it. jack likely couldn't bring himself to hurt d'artagnan, but the fear of seeing hanna damaged in the same way he was fuels it. he always has been more bark than bite. ]
[ D'Artagnan watches while Jack's temper grows, and doesn't stop growing.
It clears his head, to an extent. It throws him back to what Garrus said, and of course, he reacts the same way. He lets go of Jack, pushes him off, and then goes to retrieve the Blackglass. He pulls up the thread he had with Alina, and then shoves the glass at Jack. ]
I already stopped.
So don't come here, and threaten me. Do you think I need someone else to do that? I've done everything they asked of me, and I still will.
[ he glances at the phone, but doesn't really read it. just narrows eyes at his friend. ]
Hope that it was soon enough that they won't remember. But I doubt it.
[ everything here is held to you. every mission, every word, every flinch. and they see all of it. jack knows having your every move watched, even before the cdc, and it leaves no room for error. ]
Doing what they ask isn't enough, and they aren't going to care that that isn't fair.
[ his nose wrinkles in something between anger and mild disgust, and he says one more piece: ]
I am being your friend. You're just too petulant to realize it.
[ with that, he turns and leaves. good talk, guys. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d86; action. after this: http://consignment.dreamwidth.org/67556.html?thread=18194660#cmt18194660
jack does a quick, pissed, march to d'artagnan's quarters, doesn't bother asking to be let past the fake door thing, and comes straight up to him only to abruptly smack the blackglass out of his hand, sending it skidding across the floor. ] What the fuck do you think you're doing?
[ there's more anger in it than just frustration he'd been expecting to be there. ] How many other people have tried to talk to you already? You don't honestly think inboxing the conversation means Dagger or Gliese aren't hovering over it any less, do you? Or even this?
[ they monitor the entire crew constantly. jack doesn't know how, but he knows they see everything that happens - every conversation, every action, no matter where. he grips the front of d'artagnan's clothes, shaking him as he drags him up from wherever he's sitting. ] It's not just you or your distant planet you're putting in the crosshairs, d'Artagnan. You remember when I came back from Gliese's rover on Ajna, right? What do you think that was for, a fucking tea party?
[ maybe that's part of it, why he's so angry. he could never really hold what happened so much against michelle, but the anger's still there - for the pain itself, for what he'd been reduced to, for the damage there's still left with him. it's the idea that anyone puts someone they care about through that just for this moral complications that makes him feel furious. his view on this place has always been different than people like d'artagnan, michelle and david. he'd already come from a life that taught him 'damn your soul for what's greater than you are'. that's what the cdc is to him, and that's what undergoing torture with gliese, for michelle, was. ]
no subject
What am I doing?! What's the matter with you?! I didn't inbox anyone!
[ He didn't. They'd inboxed him. He hadn't had a problem with saying what he did in public, hadn't seen what was wrong with it.
He is angry. He's angry for Optimus, for his death, for all the deaths that have happened here and how powerless he's been to stop them. He's angrier still, knowing how close he'd come to that same fate. People like Jack had talked him into killing the Shai, and if he hadn't done it, they would have done that same thing to him. Even then, he'd almost walked away. Now they have to go to this new world and do it all over again, except that the species there won't just have potential. The file says so. They have culture. They have language. They have beliefs.
And none of it will matter because he'll have to make himself kill them and if he doesn't, he'll be another Optimus.
And Garrus had been right, for all that d'Artagnan had been incensed with him for saying so. It won't just be him to suffer. It'll be his team. His friends. The people he loves.
Jack, who's already been hurt enough, even though d'Artagnan knows less than half of what's happened to him here. His hand comes up, taking hold of Jack's jacket at the collar. His jaw is set, a line of tension that doesn't ever leave, even when that muscle in his cheek twitches. ]
I don't know. I never knew.
So you tell me, Jack, what was it for? What did she do to you?
no subject
[ he grinds it out, and surprises himself, in a way, with how much venom is in it. he'd never really let go of this. just told michelle it's fine, it's fine, trying to pascify her. he knows she hadn't really meant to get him hurt, and that she simply hadn't taken it seriously, but it still sticks in jack like a thorn. ]
Because with the morally righteous, it's too damn important to raise your nose and condemn, regardless of who suffers for it.
[ there's an old bitterness in that. watching david sacrifice one thing after another for what's right and finding himself both unable to hold that integrity, and incapable of watching a righteous act without seeing the cost assigned to it. ]
Your words damn the others around you.
[ his voice quiets, but loses none of its intensity. ]
Keep going like this, and someone you love will end up in the same place. [ a beat. ] Maybe Athos, maybe me. Maybe Hanna, and God as my fucking witness, d'Artagnan, if your foolishness gets Hanna hurt, I'll personally make sure correction for that selfishness is paid to the right person.
[ he seethes it out in the way he would to someone standing in his way in the shiloh - in how he'd spoken to david, that night behind enemy lines. he doesn't truly mean it. jack likely couldn't bring himself to hurt d'artagnan, but the fear of seeing hanna damaged in the same way he was fuels it. he always has been more bark than bite. ]
no subject
It clears his head, to an extent. It throws him back to what Garrus said, and of course, he reacts the same way. He lets go of Jack, pushes him off, and then goes to retrieve the Blackglass. He pulls up the thread he had with Alina, and then shoves the glass at Jack. ]
I already stopped.
So don't come here, and threaten me. Do you think I need someone else to do that? I've done everything they asked of me, and I still will.
I need you to be my friend. Not a threat.
[ He snatches the blackglass back. ]
Get out.
no subject
Hope that it was soon enough that they won't remember. But I doubt it.
[ everything here is held to you. every mission, every word, every flinch. and they see all of it. jack knows having your every move watched, even before the cdc, and it leaves no room for error. ]
Doing what they ask isn't enough, and they aren't going to care that that isn't fair.
[ his nose wrinkles in something between anger and mild disgust, and he says one more piece: ]
I am being your friend. You're just too petulant to realize it.
[ with that, he turns and leaves. good talk, guys. ]