Look, do you wanna freakin' tell me, or do you want me to get this from someone else? Because I'm going to find out one way or another, and given the choice? I want to hear it from you.
His warden and some chick who works in the infirmary got on my back over it. I don't know what the hell you did and I don't know what he told them yet, but I swear to god you're going to give me the story on this, or I am going to blast that snake of yours out an airlock!
[After a moment of composure, it's time to pretend that emotional outburst never happened.]
Fine, you know what I did? I wouldn't hold his hand and CUDDLE while we were watching a movie; that's what I did! I gave him the "friends" speech and said there was nothing wrong with being gay, and then he killed himself because I wouldn't compromise my sexuality to play house with him.
[There's a sharp, defiant laugh, because yeah, Harper totally can't kick her door in. But the second threat actually sticks, so she opens the door in full on bitchy glare mode.]
[She shuts the door-- well, positively slams it-- and clenches her fists. Since she hasn't entirely gotten a handle on this body's hormones yet, she finds it harder to keep her emotions in check.]
Nothing.
[Quickly, she walks over to her desk and grabs the hoodie she discarded the other night, slipping it on to cover up the two bandages on her arm. THANKS, ARMAND.]
[Harper frowns. The complete shut down when it comes to questioning his inmate about the port is... okay, kind of suspicious.]
Yeah, because I'd really have bothered coming to see you about this if I was gonna accept that for an answer.
[He watches Rex pull on the Hoodie, making a mental note that his inmate's apparently trying to cover up in front of him. He dismisses it as shyness about the girls body.]
It's nobody's business. [Her tone's snappish, and she refuses to look at Harper. Instead, she keeps her back to her warden, focusing on some notes on the desk.]
It's my business. [Harper's tone starts out just as snappish, but the truth is... in a really, really weird way, he was getting a little worried. Rex hadn't even been this difficult to talk too about his first time with Wichita. Harper folds his arms, a little uncomfortably.] And I'm not leaving without an answer, so if you're waiting for me to decide I respect your privacy, it isn't going to happen.
[She practically stomps over to where the mice and snake are being kept and, without any of the usual waxing poetics about snakes and how awesome they are, tosses a mouse unceremoniously into Tiamat's terrarium.]
Can't. I've got to pretend to be your warden every so often.
[Harper's voice has suddenly softened considerably. He walks up behind Rex, keeping his arms folded over his chest. Hearing his inmate use the word "Please", just added a whole new dimension of wrongness to all this.]
[Although still tense and closed off, her voice breaks a little. The thought of talking about it in any detail to another person makes her feel ill, and so she swallows, even though she knows that she's not really going to be sick all over the place.]
[Oh man, was Rex going to cry? That was just too weird, Rex couldn't cry! Harper moved forward reflexively, uncrossing her arms and reaching out to put one hand on her inmates shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.]
Hey, hey it's okay. Look... I know I'm not exactly the poster girl for the good guys, but you're my inmate. I do... I know I do a pretty good impression of not giving a damn, but I do.
[Sort of. Occasionally. Okay, screw it, right now she cared.]
[She looks at the chairs, but it's a sort of deer-in-the-headlights moment, and she shakes her head and covers her face.]
Don't make me talk about it.
[Right now she's just feeling a mixture of terror and disgust-- in herself, and in Armand and 11-12-- and she's afraid that if she does begin to start talking, all of the walls she's built up will come down, and that's pretty much the last thing she wants.]
[Harper reaches out to gently take Rex's elbow, and begins steering her towards the chairs.]
Sit down with me, okay? Let's do this one step at the time, okay?
[Her voice is placating, it'd be patronizing if it wasn't so completely sincere, but inside? Her stomach is beginning to knot. Martha had mentioned what she thought had happened down in the port, but from the way Rex was reacting... the truth was a far bigger deal to him than she'd made of it.]
[She lets out a brief, panicked noise when Harper touches her elbow, mostly because it's so close to one of the painfully bruising bites on her arm. Still, she says nothing about it, and hopes to play it off as just being jumpy about the conversation. In an attempt to avoid questions, she goes to wordlessly sit in one of the chairs, crossing her arms over her stomach as she does so.]
Martha Jones. Apparently 11-12 spilled the beans after his suicide attempt.
[She keeps her voice level, trying not to undo the progress she's made so far, while at the same time, being ready for push for more information if she has too.]
[She doesn't know about the million other private messages Martha's post contained, so as far as she's concerned this is the truth. The change in Rex's voice is immediately noticeable, and Harper decides it's time to press again.]
And maybe if we can work this thing out between us now, then it can stay that way, but I need you to tell me what happened, or we can't do that.
[Rex doesn't want to say a thing about the port, but she also doesn't want anybody else to know that she'd done anything with 11-12, let alone Armand.]
I don't know what happened.
[She's got a total 'dead inside' tone to her voice now, but this part is true, at least.]
I don't recall drinking anything. I just... wanted... [She stops, taking another breath to try to offset the nausea.] I fell in-- in...
[She looks down at her own lap, trying to put her thoughts together so that she could articulate them.]
There was this other man, and I wanted to be... with him... at the time. [She raises a hand up to wipe her eyes, but otherwise, refuses to acknowledge any emotional response.] And 11-12 was there, in his room, because they'd already...
[She can't finish that sentence, so she just continues.]
And he wanted me to... They... They both--
[Yeah, no, she can't get it out. She just wipes her eyes again and shakes her head.]
[Harper stays pretty calm as Rex explains all of this. Folding her arms across her stomach, she swallows, nods, and finally holds up a hand]
Okay, Rex. I just have two more questions, then I promise, I won't ask you about this ever again.
[She holds up one finger]
Firstly, who was the other guy there with you?
[And up comes a second finger]
And secondly: did they know that you weren't in control of yourself? I don't just mean like, were they certain that you'd taken something, I mean did they know you at all before the port? Because...
[Harper trailed off. Her voice had gotten a little more agitated towards the end, so she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself again.]
That's all I need to know now. Just tell me that, and then you can go back to forgetting all about this.
[FOR ONCE, Rex is actually grateful for Harper. This will never happen again. She hesitates at Harper's first question, partially out of shame, and partially because she doesn't want the wardens to come in and ruin any plans for revenge she has.]
One of them knew me from before the port, and... I know... I know he knew I wasn't really... consenting.
[She wipes her eyes again with a small sob of frustration, mostly for appearing weak, and because she's more emotional than she normally would be, thanks to the hormone shift induced by the flood.]
I can't-- I tried to stomach being around 11-12 afterwards, but I just couldn't. He kept on trying to touch me... [And she doesn't mean that in the 'molestation' sense, but as far as she's concerned, holding hands or cuddling was bad enough after the port.] And I couldn't... forget. And then he goes and kills himself because I said I didn't want to kiss him? After he-- he sat there and participated in the worst moment of my-- And he's the victim? [Her voice had been steadily rising, and now she practically shrieks:] I hate him!
[And that's it, she's pretty much broken for now, her face buried in her hands as she loses control of her emotions. It's mostly tears of anger and frustration, but there's more to it than that, even if she won't admit it.]
[Harper moves without thinking. She doesn't have all the answers yet, but she doesn't have it in her to push any more and her inmate is crying. It takes about a second for her to move forward and wrap her arms around Rex, pressing her cheek against her inmates hair and desperately, mindlessly, clinging to Rex, to try and somehow make this ever so slightly better.]
Okay, come on now, it's okay. I've got you, you're okay.
[For a couple of minutes she just held onto her inmate and repeated herself, her grip was... probably a little tighter than was entirely sympathetic.
This was one of those things that Harper (the male version) would eventually blame on the flood, but the truth was? However shitty a warden he was, and however little sympathy he had for Cobra Commander, there were some things you just had to be... well, you had to be different about. This was one of them.]
[Yeah, if it weren't for the flood, Rex likely wouldn't have reacted this way in the slightest to Harper's questions. But as it is, she still doesn't know how to handle these emotional changes, and she's stressed out and at her wits' end, and she never actually faced what had happened in port before. All in all, a lousy combination. She stills when Harper hugs her, surprised more than anything, and tries to hold back more tears, but the stupid floodgates are open, and she finds that she can't stop no matter how hard she tries. How frustrating. She's absolutely never going to acknowledge this again. She closes her eyes and pretends it's Ana holding her, like when they were kids, and just for a moment, she clings to Harper.]
[But, as she regains control of herself and her emotions, it's all over. She lets go, feeling exhausted and sick to her stomach, and blinks a few times.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:34 am (UTC)What's this about?
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:35 am (UTC)What happened with him?
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:38 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:48 am (UTC)Look, do you wanna freakin' tell me, or do you want me to get this from someone else? Because I'm going to find out one way or another, and given the choice? I want to hear it from you.
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:49 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:50 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:52 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 08:55 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 09:02 am (UTC)Private - Out come the big guns. And the lies.
Date: 2010-02-28 09:15 am (UTC)His warden and some chick who works in the infirmary got on my back over it. I don't know what the hell you did and I don't know what he told them yet, but I swear to god you're going to give me the story on this, or I am going to blast that snake of yours out an airlock!
Private - NOT THE SNAKE, 1/2
Date: 2010-02-28 03:58 pm (UTC)DON'T THREATEN MY SNAKE, YOU BITCH! GOD, I HATE YOU! YOU'RE THE WORST WARDEN EVER, I SWEAR, NOBODY ELSE HAS A WARDEN THIS LOUSY!
Private - 2/2
Date: 2010-02-28 04:02 pm (UTC)[After a moment of composure, it's time to pretend that emotional outburst never happened.]
Fine, you know what I did? I wouldn't hold his hand and CUDDLE while we were watching a movie; that's what I did! I gave him the "friends" speech and said there was nothing wrong with being gay, and then he killed himself because I wouldn't compromise my sexuality to play house with him.
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 04:16 pm (UTC)[Harper's down with ignoring your pain.]
Why the hell did he want to cuddle with you?
Private
Date: 2010-02-28 04:20 pm (UTC)Private
Date: 2010-02-28 06:08 pm (UTC)Man, why do people come to me with this crap? They ever consider the possibility that their inmate needs to learn to keep his hands to himself?
Private - Later
Date: 2010-02-28 06:10 pm (UTC)Private 1/2
Date: 2010-02-28 06:14 pm (UTC)Private 2/2
Date: 2010-02-28 06:15 pm (UTC)NOTHING!
Private 1/2
Date: 2010-02-28 06:16 pm (UTC)SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:17 pm (UTC)SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:24 pm (UTC)GO AWAY!
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:30 pm (UTC)[Actually he probably couldn't kick the door in.]
Or... more realistically, don't make me unscrew it's hinges. It'll only make me worse when I get through!
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:49 pm (UTC)I don't want to talk to you.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:55 pm (UTC)[Harper immediately moves forward, getting past the threshold so that Rex couldn't change his mind about opening the door.]
What happened in the port?
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 06:57 pm (UTC)Nothing.
[Quickly, she walks over to her desk and grabs the hoodie she discarded the other night, slipping it on to cover up the two bandages on her arm. THANKS, ARMAND.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:07 pm (UTC)Yeah, because I'd really have bothered coming to see you about this if I was gonna accept that for an answer.
[He watches Rex pull on the Hoodie, making a mental note that his inmate's apparently trying to cover up in front of him. He dismisses it as shyness about the girls body.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:13 pm (UTC)SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:21 pm (UTC)SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:30 pm (UTC)Just go. Please.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:45 pm (UTC)[Harper's voice has suddenly softened considerably. He walks up behind Rex, keeping his arms folded over his chest. Hearing his inmate use the word "Please", just added a whole new dimension of wrongness to all this.]
Rex... how bad was this?
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 07:56 pm (UTC)[Although still tense and closed off, her voice breaks a little. The thought of talking about it in any detail to another person makes her feel ill, and so she swallows, even though she knows that she's not really going to be sick all over the place.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 08:19 pm (UTC)Hey, hey it's okay. Look... I know I'm not exactly the poster girl for the good guys, but you're my inmate. I do... I know I do a pretty good impression of not giving a damn, but I do.
[Sort of. Occasionally. Okay, screw it, right now she cared.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 08:28 pm (UTC)It doesn't-- it's not... I don't want to talk about it with anybody.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 08:35 pm (UTC)Yeah, I get that, and I'm sorry, but you're going to have to talk about it to me.
[She glances to the side slightly, and takes a half a step back, gesturing towards a pair of chairs.]
Come on, let's sit down.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 08:41 pm (UTC)Don't make me talk about it.
[Right now she's just feeling a mixture of terror and disgust-- in herself, and in Armand and 11-12-- and she's afraid that if she does begin to start talking, all of the walls she's built up will come down, and that's pretty much the last thing she wants.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 08:55 pm (UTC)Sit down with me, okay? Let's do this one step at the time, okay?
[Her voice is placating, it'd be patronizing if it wasn't so completely sincere, but inside? Her stomach is beginning to knot. Martha had mentioned what she thought had happened down in the port, but from the way Rex was reacting... the truth was a far bigger deal to him than she'd made of it.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 09:00 pm (UTC)Who told you something happened? Specifically.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 09:13 pm (UTC)Martha Jones. Apparently 11-12 spilled the beans after his suicide attempt.
[She keeps her voice level, trying not to undo the progress she's made so far, while at the same time, being ready for push for more information if she has too.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 09:14 pm (UTC)Who else did they tell?
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 09:19 pm (UTC)[She doesn't know about the million other private messages Martha's post contained, so as far as she's concerned this is the truth. The change in Rex's voice is immediately noticeable, and Harper decides it's time to press again.]
And maybe if we can work this thing out between us now, then it can stay that way, but I need you to tell me what happened, or we can't do that.
SPAM
Date: 2010-02-28 09:29 pm (UTC)I don't know what happened.
[She's got a total 'dead inside' tone to her voice now, but this part is true, at least.]
I don't recall drinking anything. I just... wanted... [She stops, taking another breath to try to offset the nausea.] I fell in-- in...
[She looks down at her own lap, trying to put her thoughts together so that she could articulate them.]
There was this other man, and I wanted to be... with him... at the time. [She raises a hand up to wipe her eyes, but otherwise, refuses to acknowledge any emotional response.] And 11-12 was there, in his room, because they'd already...
[She can't finish that sentence, so she just continues.]
And he wanted me to... They... They both--
[Yeah, no, she can't get it out. She just wipes her eyes again and shakes her head.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 12:34 am (UTC)Okay, Rex. I just have two more questions, then I promise, I won't ask you about this ever again.
[She holds up one finger]
Firstly, who was the other guy there with you?
[And up comes a second finger]
And secondly: did they know that you weren't in control of yourself? I don't just mean like, were they certain that you'd taken something, I mean did they know you at all before the port? Because...
[Harper trailed off. Her voice had gotten a little more agitated towards the end, so she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself again.]
That's all I need to know now. Just tell me that, and then you can go back to forgetting all about this.
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 01:50 am (UTC)One of them knew me from before the port, and... I know... I know he knew I wasn't really... consenting.
[She wipes her eyes again with a small sob of frustration, mostly for appearing weak, and because she's more emotional than she normally would be, thanks to the hormone shift induced by the flood.]
I can't-- I tried to stomach being around 11-12 afterwards, but I just couldn't. He kept on trying to touch me... [And she doesn't mean that in the 'molestation' sense, but as far as she's concerned, holding hands or cuddling was bad enough after the port.] And I couldn't... forget. And then he goes and kills himself because I said I didn't want to kiss him? After he-- he sat there and participated in the worst moment of my-- And he's the victim? [Her voice had been steadily rising, and now she practically shrieks:] I hate him!
[And that's it, she's pretty much broken for now, her face buried in her hands as she loses control of her emotions. It's mostly tears of anger and frustration, but there's more to it than that, even if she won't admit it.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 02:16 am (UTC)Okay, come on now, it's okay. I've got you, you're okay.
[For a couple of minutes she just held onto her inmate and repeated herself, her grip was... probably a little tighter than was entirely sympathetic.
This was one of those things that Harper (the male version) would eventually blame on the flood, but the truth was? However shitty a warden he was, and however little sympathy he had for Cobra Commander, there were some things you just had to be... well, you had to be different about. This was one of them.]
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 02:33 am (UTC)[But, as she regains control of herself and her emotions, it's all over. She lets go, feeling exhausted and sick to her stomach, and blinks a few times.]
You won't tell...?
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 02:42 am (UTC)I won't tell. I promise.
SPAM
Date: 2010-03-01 02:55 am (UTC)Thanks.