donkeyballs | Reverie: IC Inbox

[ Alex didn't say anything for a very long minute, watching the liquid pool. ]

And here I thought we might be able to get out of it, for a while. Thought after we'd killed that thing... Our part it in might've been over.

Yeah. I guess we pulled you back into it, didn't we?

[Or at least more seriously. Looking for a missing child is one thing, but doing it with a UN Undersecretary and a Martian deserter is another.]

[He lets out a breath, then shakes his head.]

I dunno, Gunny. Sometimes I get the feelin' like... We just keep endin' up in it as if we're supposed to be there. That make any sense?

Like -

It's a pretty damn huge coincidence that we were there just in time to pick you up, right? And a damn huge coincidence that we just happened to be on Eros, before it blew up, and that we happened to get the distress call from the Scopuli--

[She looks up to study him for a moment, just barely frowning.]

What are you saying? It's... fate?

[ He sort of shrugged and shook his head at the same time. Not a 'no' so much as a 'I have no fucking clue'. ]

Dunno. Wouldn't say I believed in it before, but. [ He let out a breath. ]

It's weird, right?

I don't know. I guess it is. If you hadn't been the one to answer our distress call, we would have been thrown in jail or worse.

['Firing squad', Martens had said.]

Well. Then I'm damn glad we were there to pick you up.

[ Even if he can't fucking remember it.

He frowns at his glass, and then downs the whole thing in one shot. ]

Hooboy.

[She's glad too, but... Alex...]

Did you just say "hooboy"?

[ In fact, he had no idea that he'd just said 'hooboy', because he'd mostly just said it as a reflex. So he blinked at her. ]

Uh -

Guess I did? Just burns a bit on the way down, you know?

[Bobbie laughs, downing her own drink.]

If they didn't rake you over the coals over that in the Navy, I'll eat my hat.

['Eat my hat' sounds like it belongs in a conversation with 'hooboy'.]

[ Considering how heavy the conversation had been, her laugh is like a break of sunshine through the clouds.

( Even if he'd never actually seen that. )

He doesn't laugh, but he does smile, and it's probably a little too soft. ]

You say that like they ain't all just gonna 'hooboy' along with me.

[She feigns a disgusted face.]

I knew you swabbies didn't have your heads screwed on right.

[ That does make him laugh, a low chuckle in his throat, and he reaches past her to grab the bottle and pour himself another glass, and top hers up. ]

What, we're supposed to have them all screwed to the left like you groundhogs?

[It's nice to hear him laugh, and she finds she can't stop smiling.]

Hey, maybe you'd actually get something done for once.

[ He keeps chuckling, and it's good, it's almost cathartic, and it's something else to think about than 20 million people dead or being stuck thousands of lightyears away from Mars, or never seeing the faces of his family again--

The laugh dies out, the smile fading, though he then forces it to stay plastered onto his lips. He finishes pouring their drinks, then holds up his glass toward her. ]

To Mars. And may they get some goddamn sense in their heads so its still there to go home to.

[Bobbie's smile vanishes instantly, mood lowering. She clinks his glass against his softly.]

We'll get home. We have to.

[And she's not going to let herself think about her father or her brothers or anyone else she cares about, still at home and at the mercy of a war that's only escalating.]

We will.

[ He took the drink, the whole thing, in one shot.

He did not say 'hooboy' this time.

Instead, he just set it down on the bar a little too hard, then looked at her. ]

We will, Gunny.

[ They had to. ]

Reverie: IC Inbox

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i couldn't resist

s t o p

blame the writers not me

i can do both!!!

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