Locked.

[h_hollister]

After her chat with Severus and Dez earlier, Hips gets out her hanging bag. She hasn't used it in weeks, due to drama and running away and all that.

And it feels good.

It hurts, too. She's let things slide. So muscles protest at the punches being thrown, but she works through it.

She's worked too hard to let herself go, now.

The walkman that Perry gave her for Christmas is in use, with upbeat, powerful, happy music blaring in her ears.

Each punch is tension released, a worry let go of. Personal. Not the same as important.

Jerusalem? Not personal. Not really important, either. Just a job.

Severus? Getting steadily better, and that's what's important.

Rimmer? Personal. Not important.

Wade? Personal. Not important.

Thunder? Personal. Deeply so. Not important. Not to anybody else but her. And she knows that eventually this open ended THING between them will be resolved, one way or the other. Preferably with both of them ending up happy.

She's sweating, now, and her breathing rate is high and deep.

Each punch is a little bit of fear gone.

Comments

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

The knife she gave him is suddenly shaking, sticking out of the bag without leaking out any of the stuffing.

"Why won't you hate me like you're supposed to?"

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

She eyes the knife, and calmly pulls it back out of the bag after a moment. Playing with the tip.

"Is that what I'm supposed to do?"

She flips the knife around quickly, and a moment later it's embedded in her bedroom wall across the room from both of them.

"You're not worth the energy. I've got better things to do than hate. Anybody. Sorry to disappoint again."

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"Ah. At least you've shaken the love-thang off. That's about all I needed."

He finally moves, taking a slow stroll over to retrieve the knife.

"It's usually just easier to draw out the blood-feud bile."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

"Oh, is that what you're worried about? I'm angry with you, yeah. I'm angry as fuck with you. But, hey, holy crap, look at this... I still care about you. But I like Terry too much to screw it up. So I will not be jumping your bones anytime soon."

She turns and looks at him full on.

"I told you, Wilson. A long time ago. All that matters to me is if you're happy. If you're happy with her, I'm glad."

She tosses her walkman on the bed. Her voice is flat and calm.

"And by the way. You're goddamn right I have daddy issues. You saw him. You saw what he was like. What, did you think he was taking off that belt because he'd just had a big meal? So pardon me for taking up oxygen and still having the emotional scars from that."

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"All right. The porn-star crack was low. Although if all he did was whip your ass, porn stars have it worse."

He plucks the knife out of the wall.

"Unless he was one of those creatively sadistic types."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

"Depends on your definition of creatively sadistic. Does a two pound pewter buckle shaped like the space corps logo across the face of a six year old count?"

She walks over to her desk and pulls a sweatshirt off the back of her chair. She pulls it on over her sports bra and bike shorts combo.

"My burdens are mine. Just like yours are yours. I don't judge yours. You sure as hell don't get to judge mine. But, again, excuse my working lungs for hoping you'd at least like me for wanting to be with you and support you. I know better now."

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"Not really. Sounds like run-of-the-mill brutal kick-the-cat syndrome to me. Standard discipline in Detroit, really. Sucks, yeah, no question, and I'm sure you didn't deserve that crap. Have a broken beer bottle used to carve 'Stay Away From Those Thugs' in your dog's freshly-shot corpse, and then maybe we'll talk about sadism."

He flips the knife back in.

"But if you're gonna be saying shit like 'you see yourself in my eyes,' you're damn right I get to judge your burdens. I'm the Burden Motherfuckin' Auditor, because that's MY ENTIRE LIFE. Spend an hour or two with needles carefully inserted through your retinas, or having a series of nails hammered up into your skull through your teeth trying to max out your pain tolerance. Maybe take a gander as a giant mechanical claw wielded by the guy you hate more than anything else in the world reaches in and Temple-Of-Dooms your still-beating heart RIGHT THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR CHEST after he lobotomizes the closet thing you have to a friend on This Toilet Earth and MAYBE you'll start seeing ugly, twisted chunks of yourself floating around in my aqueous humor, but until then, GET SOME FUCKING PERSPECTIVE."

Suddenly, he juts a hard kick at the bag, knocking it off its hook and crashing it down to the ground harshly, while he spins to face away from her.

"But I never said I didn't like you."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

And she sees the images, then, from his point of view, of just all that happening. Like it's playing for her in full color against her wall. From when she came out of BTL, but before he did. And none of it made any sense until right now.

"Don't yell," she says quietly after a moment, picking up the now very abused bag and shoving it back in her closet. Something to do while she talks. "I knew about all that. I saw it. And I'm sorry. More sorry than I think you know. But all of that doesn't give you the right to hurt me just because you can."

She lights up a cigarette.

"Your hurts, your pains, your perspectives... they're not the only ones in this world. I offered to help you, to be with you, and you repaid me with nothing but bile. Can you blame me for thinking you didn't like me?"

Then, something hits her, and her face changes. From slight anger behind the calm to something softer.

"You've never told anybody about that, have you?"

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"If you think I'm hurting you just because I can, like I get some kinda kick from it, you still don't get me, and that's the goddamned point."

He flips the knife open again, idly.

"Don't start talking like you're Queen Benevolent of the Sugar Plum Realm. I'm sure you heard the selfless offer of help and support, but all I heard was 'good god, no one's ever loved me despite the fact that I'm really insanely ridiculously hot, I crave validation so much I'll pretty much declare myself the intellectual property of the first jerk-off that doesn't spit on me.' And, being the shining bastion of virtue that I am, I could only take advantage of you a handful of times before the strange and unusual buzzing in my head that I've ignored so long I could barely recognize it as my conscience began to actually kick into gear."

Knife. No knife. Knife. No knife.

"You're another in the extremely short line of people I've tried to help to help themselves with disastrous results. Although if you haven't gone on a psychotic murder spree, you'll count as progress."

Knife. No knife. Knife. No knife.

"But I like what you are - what you should be. The tough-as-shinola chick beating the hell out of that bag. What you are when you're not swallowed up in this neurotic trap you keep falling into."

"That me and Robodildo keep pushing you into."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

She sinks onto her chair, backwards, resting her chin on the back of her hands. "I never thought it was selfless. Falling for you was an incredibly selfish thing. But, yeah, I was hoping we could help each other. And, yes, you were the first to treat me with something resembling respect. So when it went sour, it hurt me like hell. Which you absolutely did do on purpose. You said it yourself. You wanted to get me unhooked from you. I'm not saying you got a kick out of it. But it wasn't about validation. If I was looking for validation, I'd have picked somebody like... god, I don't know. Greg Sanders. Piotr Rasputin. Guys who'd have absolutely no hesitations about boosting my ego. But I chose you because I see in you the exact same thing you see in me. I like who you are and what you should be, too, you know. When you're not swallowed up in that same trap. The degrees differ, the reasons differ, but that's what it boils down to."

She glances at his swords, which are hanging over her headboard. They look weirdly out of place next to the print of Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte a few feet to the right.

"Nobody is pushing me into anything. I love who I love. My feelings, my loyalty... I'm still new at it, yeah. I lived like the goddamn Borg queen for twenty seven years. Nothing meant anything to me. And now I'm letting people in, letting them care, letting myself care. I know I've made mistakes. But I also know that I'm perfectly valid in feeling the way I do. Without having to hear it from somebody else. I'm not choosing failure any more."

A little smile.

"Mission accomplished, Wade. And, no, no murder sprees. I'm not her."

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"You didn't pick those chumps because you still had yourself chained to me. Don't even try to tell me you weren't psycho on me."

Then he shakes his head. "But whatever, you're done with me, and that's all for the best. I'm sorry I got stompy in the closet, and I'm sorry I shoved you at Captain Emo. I didn't realize how much of a complete tool he was. I thought he only LOOKED the part."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I was. And that sucked and I'm sorry. But in my own defense, I had a little bit of help on the 'psycho' part. The Game fucked with my brain. Physically, I mean. Eiko called it a mnemonic schism or something. I'm getting it fixed here real soon. Don't worry, you won't have to come in after me this time."

Puff puff.

"And he's not a tool. He's an alien stuck in a body that's completely different than what he's used to. How would you feel if you turned into a... god, what are those things called again? Skrull? You'd be totally lost, too, and you know it. He's used to having a cybernetic brain, not a human one. Which I kept forgetting. And I'm paying for that mistake now. But you don't have to be sorry about it. I could have walked away. I didn't."

Puff puff.

"And I'm still mad as fuck at you. You used me. And then when I didn't react the way you expected, you panicked. You goddamn well better not treat Terry like that, is all I have to say. She's my friend, and I won't have you hurting her the way you did to me."

[wadewilson.livejournal.com]

"Get off that high horse right now."

The voice is cold again.

"I announced I wanted to fuck for a week, and you took me up on it. And if you're trying to imply everything else was usery, fuck off, I never told you it was going to be anything else. I told you the score straight up. You're the one who kept insisting it was true magic love. And if you think I'm gonna treat the pie-in-the-sky girl that I passed up a happenin' psychotic relationship with you for with anything other than a respect that's gonna border on being too high a pedestal, think again."

[h-hollister.livejournal.com]

She just raises an eyebrow at him. "Bullshit. Come off it yourself, Wilson. You've got enough issues to make Newsweek jealous. If you honestly think pie-in-the-sky Theresa Cassidy is gonna put up with that pedestal, you're going to be very disappointed. She's got needs and feelings, and she's not your goddamn therapist, nor is she an angel. You react to my issues that way? Well, she's got issues too. So don't you dare use them against her like you used mine against me."

Her voice isn't cold. Just calm.

"If you're trying to get a rise out of me, it's not going to work. I wasn't implying anything about what happened before. But if it bothered you so goddamn much, you could have just pushed me aside after the first time instead of fucking me silly repeatedly thereafter. But I'm goddamn great in the sack, I have it on pretty good authority, so you kept coming back for more. It takes two to tango, baby, or in this case horizontal mambo. You have a fifty percent share in this hot little mess, so own up to it and stop laying it all at my feet."