[open] Have I no control?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Date & Time: Morning of Oct 11th
Location: VR rooms
Characters: Nate and open!
Summary: Nate shouts at rocks, and fails to climb them.
Warnings: Angst, swearing, possibly discussions of Tragic Pasts.


The VR rock-face was a pretty measely imitation of the real thing, up close and personal. He'd created it off of memory and terrain mapping data, along with a certain amount of random-generation algorithms, but even with the textures, the background sounds of nature, he could still see the imperfections. Funny - it never bothered him in the other VR sims, or in the Danger Room. But climbing - it had always been the essence of physicality, of living in the single moment, no extra room for the future or the past. And with that kind of focus, the unrealities began to reveal themselves.

But it would have to do. Up here, he had no other way of getting away from everything, from getting away from his own thoughts. It was largely working, too, if only because he was in much poorer shape. He'd already had his left hand slip twice, and lost hold entirely once, but with the safeties off, he wasn't feeling quite suicidal enough to try free-climbing this. He had things to look forward to, now. People depending on him.

"Fucking rock isn't going to stop me..." Easier to pin all his frustrations here, to this inanimate object. It didn't matter what he said or did, there wasn't anyone here to witness it. And to put the insurmountable into something he could surmount - well, it made him feel better.

He shifting, reaching for a higher hold with his right hand - and his left lost hold with the additional strain on it, losing him his precarious grip on the wall. There was a jolt as his line pulled up tight, and the angle sent him swinging away from the wall - and then crashing back into it, banging his injured knee painfully. He managed to get one handhold, swearing in more than one language, but any grip strength he had in his left hand was gone, and he could tell from the pain that his knee wasn't up to holding his weight. For now, the rock had won.

Even using his TK to assist - which he didn't like doing, but he didn't want to risk further injury - the decent took far too long, and when he reached the bottom, he sat down less than gracefully, not even unclipping his harness first. 'Frustrated' was probably understating how he felt right now - tired, frustrated, upset, angry.

"Hell. What do you think you are? Too old, too broken for this shit." His words to himself were almost too tired to carry any venom - just a vague sense of self-loathing instead. He punched the not-quite-earth he was sitting on, but it didn't make him feel any better. He glared up at the rock wall instead. "Fuck you, too. This isn't over."

Comments

[taijiya]

VR was never her specialty in Exsilium, but these rooms were the closest thing to a training facility the moon base had without utilizing the Transporter. It might even have been more a matter of exploration of the base than anything else that led her to that particular room.

What surprised her as she hesitated by the door was not Nate's presence, but his apparent emotional state. He was, in Exsilium, the only 'rock' she'd known--perhaps ironic, considering the wall he'd had so much trouble scaling--the kind of person you'd never expect to doubt himself or lose control. Steady, sage, willing to knock some heads together (or as she'd found out not too long ago, down) if that was what it took. She knew without having to be told that this sort of outburst was probably rare, unquestionably private. The kind of thing he'd see as a sign of weakness. It reminded her of her former troupe, her colleagues, all the scarred men who kept their insecurities so tightly under lock and key.

She considered leaving. Letting him grieve on his own time. But it felt wrong to do that--when she owed him so much for dragging her to the moon base even through her own bullheaded stubbornness. Sango thought of Kagome, who would without doubt know exactly what words to say and what comfort to give. She could hardly claim mastery of those things, but she had her own way of helping.

As she approached, she dug in the blue kerchief around her shoulders until she found what she wanted--a small container easily identifiable as painkillers--and offered it to him. She had some topical salves and maybe some bandages, too, but she wasn't sure if those would be well-received, and in any case she came from a place where all but the most visibly serious injuries were 'rub some dirt on it' situations. "Not broken yet," she said, "unless you've just done it to yourself."

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Nate couldn't help but laugh, though it was sharp and broken-sounding. The platitude was well-meant, but empty.

"Tell me that in forty years." Time had always been his real enemy - too little or too much, in turn. Never enough to do what needed to be done, but plenty afterwards to kick himself about not doing more.

He eyed the bottle she held out with a measure of suspicion. "What's in those?"

[taijiya]

She chose not to comment, mostly because she had had a deeply ingrained respect for elders basically since birth and also because he had a point that she had no idea what it was like to be sixty-something at all, let alone in Exsilium and with the sort of past she imagined he had.

Instead, Sango shook the bottle. "It has a complicated name that I can't for the life of me remember, but it's stuff from the clinic." A pause. "Or... what used to be the clinic. Kills pain quicker than anything I've ever known, in any case."

The label on the bottle would be useless to her, but it was still readable if slightly worn, if Nate needed it.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

"Side-effects?" Nate had no idea what her standards for pain-killers were, but he avoided as many of the opiate-derivatives as he could - being fuzzy-headed was a risk he usually couldn't take, and it helped to not build up tolerance for when he really needed it. Right now, the pain was an irritation, but one he could push aside easily enough. He'd had decades of practice at this, after all.

[taijiya]

"Only the standard 'if you can't feel it you don't know how bad it is' warning, as far as I can tell. It's not like the stuff they give you when they want to lock you down on bed rest in the clinic." Her expression turned to one of distaste, as if she was remembering those kinds of drugs and periods of forced rest accompanying them. "But if you don't want it, you don't want it."

Sometimes it was better to be distracted.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

He sighed, and gestured for her to hand him the bottle. "Probably anti-inflammatories, then - they'll do some good." Probably more for the inflammation than the pain, really, but he knew that was the source of the problem, and pain he could deal with.

[taijiya]

She tried not to look too pleased as he acquiesced and took the bottle, instead dropping to a casual crouch beside him.

"Why are you climbing rocks, anyway?"

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

"Practice." He dumped out three of the pills and dry-swallowed them with an ease that betrayed how often he'd done it in the past. "And it helps me focus."

[taijiya]

Sango propped her chin on her knees, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes. "A lot of... focusing going on here, lately, huh?"

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Nate glanced back. "Given all that's happened lately... we could all use some time to focus, I think."