doesitanyway | [ MEADOWLARK ] IC Inbox

Complicated feels like a good word for it.

[ Ephemera rubs his thumb along the rim of the glass. Focuses on the texture, the feel of it against his skin. he THINKS ABOUT freelancer. The institution of it. The setup. The individual players. How it fucked up Washington, fucked up Maine. Probably fucked all of them up. How that had felt like an excuse and maybe still does. He thinks about his family, dead on in the field, and how he wasn't there to fight with them. And he exhales slowly.

He stays in the moment. He drinks. There's only one question he can think to ask. ]

How?

...you know what a life led by hate feels like. I think eventually I couldn't bear it. I had to narrow my focus, or shift it for the most part, to sentiments. A frightened person will do whatever they think is necessary to survive, especially when they have support. I still hated individual people, don't get me wrong. But not in the way of vengeance. It serves my grief better to fight on a grander scale. And as people can be led astray, they can be shown the truth and be better for it.

I don't know your world's situation enough to weigh in, but I hope my story can help you somewhat.

[ There's a lot to parse through there, and Ephemera isn't sure he understands all of it or could ever get there himself. But he listens, watching Trevor all the while. ]

You found something to fight for.

[ Ephemera rubs his thumb along the rim of the glass. Then he sighs and sets it down. His shirt is loose, like most of his clothes. Easy to move in. Easy enough to pull down the collar and reveal the edge of the tattoo. Letters like a brand across his skin. ]

We really did try, with the Insurrection. I wanted that to be my redemption.

[ He shakes his head. ]

I'm glad you found that, Trevor. I'm glad you had that.

I didn't do it alone, in the end. No one will ever be the same as the people you lost, but the void isn't forever.

[ He takes another drink, longer. ]

Though I suppose you have to be prepared to lose them, too. Sometimes by being abducted to another universe.

[ That's not a good path for him to go down right now, though, and he doesn't want to get Ephemera along it either. He looks at the tattoo, fills in the covered letters to figure out what it says. Redemption, hm? ]

Tell me about it? This insurrection.

[ That's what it comes down to in the end, isn't it? Having people there with you. Ephemera's family is gone. The memories haunt him still and likely always will. He became the man he was because of his brothers and sisters. They made him better. They made him good. And then they were gone.

But he's not alone here. Not anymore.

Ephemera leans back a little. ]

They've been around a long time. I don't even know how they got started, not for sure. There was a lot of propaganda. I bought in to it. Pretty much everyone did. Called them terrorists. Just a bunch of motherfuckers who didn't know what was good for them. Too stupid to know better, too selfish to change.

[ He believed it. He killed a lot of them before he started wondering. ]

They didn't want to be under UNSC control. There was more to it, but that was the crux. And we went against them hard. Even with the Covenant wrecking everyone's shit, command wanted them wiped out. Their people were spread out, tended to go to ground when they knew we were coming. And then one day we got the order to hit this encampment.

[ Ephemera goes quiet for a moment. ]

It's called cleaning house. Go in, kill everything that moves. And we were geared up, we were ready. There were sentries, but they weren't....they had armor, or pieces of it, but they weren't trained up, you know? You could tell. They didn't know how to move. And that was when we realized it wasn't a staging area like command said. I cornered one. I was about to shoot her, but, uh. Her helmet fell off. And it was a kid. Just some kid, wearing her dad's armor. She was barely tall enough to make it work. But it looked good from a distance. They were trying to keep people away, look like enough of a threat nobody would bother them. So nobody'd realize it was a refugee camp.

[ Trevor listens, finding that the story isn't quite what he thought it was going to be. He figured it was the side Ephemera was on, but now it sounds like a third group altogether.

His expression darkens at the part about cleaning house. About the children. ]

...were they even actually Insurrection?

Their parents were. And their armor was.

[ It's said quietly. His team hadn't known, but that doesn't change the fact that they were sent in the first place. That he came that close to killing a child just because she had fit the shape of the threat he'd been told to expect. ]

Hunter and Barrows managed to calm them down long enough to talk to us. They were hanging on by nothing. There wasn't anyone older than sixteen in that camp. So we called back. Tried to explain it to command, that there'd been bad intel. They weren't a threat to anyone.

[ Ephemera twitches. Anger flashes in his good eye; an old, brutal fury. ]

But they had armor. That was what that fucker said. They had armor and that made them enemy combatants, so we had to get it done. They were Innie fucking scum.

We said no. And then command dropped a missile.

[ It takes Trevor a moment to remember what a missile is, and he doesn't know the scale of what one can do, but he knows it's a terrible story and it's likely the teens were all killed just like command wanted.

He takes another drink, trying to wrap his mind around it. ]

That's when you got the tattoo. When your family joined their cause.

Yeah.

[ Ephemera drags a hand through his hair. It was shaved down when he first got here but it's starting to grow back out. Come in scruffy. He should probably cut it, make sure it doesn't get in his eye and screw up his remaining vision, but he hasn't. There's a part of him that likes the idea of growing it out. Letting it get long. A change. ]

They didn't trust as at first. Couldn't blame them, not with everything we'd done to them. But we were trained up and our armor was better than theirs. We could go places they couldn't.

I liked them. I had friends. The UNSC treated everything like a number's game, like it didn't matter if they lost people so long as they won the advantage. The Insurrection, they really cared about each other. I remember there was this couple we used to run missions with, Ben and Hadi. Ben was a sniper, real good too. Hadi was a medic. But they decided they wanted to get married one day, in case they didn't make it, and we did. Whole group made the time. They got married in their armor. Somebody even found rings.

[ His expression softens. ]

Think you would have liked them, too. I thought it was a way back from everything we'd done. Redemption. I thought we could make a difference.

[ There's something about the past tense here that feels final. The assumption is that all of them are dead as well, of course, but Trevor still gets the feeling that the tale is incomplete. That this wasn't when the Freelancers came into play. ]

Unlikely, unless I met them now. I wasn't much of a people person until recently.

[ But that's not the point. ]

What happened next?

You never know. They were charming as fuck.

[ It didn't last, though. Ephemera sighs. ]

Ah. It turned out their command was pretty much the same as ours when it came down to it. And then it didn't really matter how good the soldiers were, or how hard they tried. What they wanted to build.

We were running a protection detail for a field hospital. My squad, Ben and Hadi. Couple others. People I liked. My friends. Anyway, we got word the UNSC was coming and we had to pack up quick. Command said we had to bail. But that'd mean leaving the wounded behind. There were a couple who couldn't be moved.

[ Ephemera bows his head. ]

There was no chance. The position wasn't defensible and command wouldn't give us a ship so we could get the wounded out. We would've been wiped out if we stayed. But some of them did. Ben and Hadi. Carter Boone. Rose, her daughter. We tried to get them to leave with us, but they wouldn't. They wouldn't.

[ That haunts him, and always has. Ephemera exhales slowly. He'd been a little in love with Carter Boone, or thought he could be, but it hadn't mattered. None of it had. ]

They lasted about a day. And I know we couldn't have saved them. I know that. All we would've done was die with them. But we couldn't stay after that.

[ Well that's another horrible story. Trevor looks down into his glass, at what's left, and how he thought his life had sucked. But that was only one tragedy.

He downs the remainder and lets the glass rest on his leg, his jaw working. ]

Understandable. I'm sorry, Ephemera.

Yeah. Me too.

[ He doesn't want to talk about what came next. How the deaths kept stacking up, one failed cause after another. How they switched over to merc jobs because at least nobody was pretending they were righteous. And how even then they had tried one final time to decent human beings, to make a different. Do the right fucking thing. How that went wrong like everything else.

Ephemera runs a hand through his hair. Shakes his head. ]

I don't know if I can do causes anymore. But I'm trying to just...be around other people. Not going about it alone.

[ Trevor hums agreement low in his throat -- he has the opposite problem, he thinks, he isn't functioning without a cause, but the sentiment makes sense. The burnout, the disillusionment.

He tries to lighten the mood a little, if only to stop himself from reaching for the bottle again. ]

I'd ask if you were curating the people you're trying to be around, but.

[ He gestures to himself. ]

Terrible taste, really.

[ Ephemera huffs, giving Trevor a little smile. ]

Not really. I don't have a lot of friends. Think you're one of my better ones.

[ Trevor doesn't smile back right away. He blinks, looking almost shocked, then bursts out in laughter. He's drunk, of course, but it's still an odd response. ]

You know, no one has ever called me their friend before.

[ Ephemera tips his head to the side. ]

Really? No one?

[ He remembers the pull from the empathy bond. It goes both ways. And he remembers the feeling of loneliness. ]

You are my friend.

Hmm, I had only my family, then no one, and then... no. Not in so many words.

[ He wouldn't call Alucard a friend, and Sypha is certainly something but he's not sure what. Trevor isn't the best at understanding his own emotions, to say the least.

Ephemera says it in so many words, and Trevor smiles faintly. ]

And you're mine.

It almost feels righteous, being alone.

[ His voice goes distant for a moment, though Ephemera shakes it off. He's drinking, possibly drunk, but not lost. Not yet. ]

Like that's how it's meant to be. But I'm remembering now. What it feels like to be around other people. To....have people. Friends.

It feels good.

[ It doesn't hurt. ]

...it does feel like that's how it's meant to be. Like I'm meant to lose everything, over and over.

[ It keeps happening, anyway. And yup, he's drunk. He sighs. ]

You're not allowed to go anywhere.

[ Ephemera tips his head to the side. His expression is somber. Perhaps he really is drunk. It snuck up on him. ]

You're not, either.

I'd say you should just come with me whenever we figure out how to escape this prison, but the past isn't exactly rolling in luxuries.

Actually. When people disappear from here, is it assumed they go back where they came from, or..?

Wouldn't recommend coming with me to the future. It's a shitshow.

[ Funny how that works. Ephemera considers that for a moment, then shrugs. ]

I heard people come back sometimes. Either they remember being here or they don't.

[ He wonders where Ginia went back to. If he'll ever see her again. ]

[ Trevor quirks an eyebrow. ]

Both those statements are less than encouraging... well, you'd be welcome in the past if you want to brave it.

[ He shrugs again. ]

Think most places are a shit show, unless you've got people.

[ He blinks, refocusing. ]

Why'd you ask? About people going back.

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