![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Ofic -- Territoriality v.2 - part 2
This is the Tyr ofic -- the version i tried for NaNo two years ago. I had more written but I never posted it. Note, it still ran into plotholes and therefore there is not more than this currently and probably won't be. I need to find another angle of attack, AGAIN.
there's a therapist in there and i'm all :/ that she might seem unprofessional or newbieish or flaky which was not my intention, and the setup of the house itself pings me as somewhat slapdash and unprofessional, i'll need to study more how they would organize this (security, orderlies, etc) for better chances of success and safety. But there's character interaction in here which I like, even tho idk if this is the best way to introduce Xiang either. :(((
I like Tarek enough that I might keep her around tho. She wasn't supposed to but hey. XD
part 1
They'd met Tarek the previous evening at dinner. She was a young woman, twenty year old at most, but tall, curvy to the point of statuesque. Middle Eastern origin, olive skin, short, curly dark hair, even darker eyes -- steady, watchful, rather quiet. Very deliberate, precise in her every gesture. He could see her on the bomb squad, she was that steady.
"--told you not like that!" she was snarling at the cook, looming over him with teeth showing. A small woman in a business-casual vest-and-skirt ensemble was attempting to touch her arm and calm her down, but Tarek only yanked her arm away before the other woman made contact with her bare elbow. Muscles in her jaw went tense, bulged. "Don't touch me."
"Soraya, please, we can just do it again, there's no need to get angry--"
Tyr glanced at Serrano, who stood in the doorway with him, her eyebrow arched. She glanced back, rolled her eye a bit. Civilians. Being grabbed from behind? She was lucky Tarek hadn't elbowed her in the throat instead.
The argument continued. Over... dropped cutlery? The order of plates? Tyr was sure he was missing something. The other therianthrope looked furious enough, though. On the edge of losing it, maybe, but wading into it just might make her lose it faster, and the way she'd cornered that man...
It'd be hard to get her to abandon her prey, if she was that far gone. Tyr started scanning the room, the position of the chairs and table and couch. At least Tarek wasn't in direct sight of the window, so she couldn't be shot from the outside, but that meant they had to fix this now --
"Attention!" Serrano snapped without warning, in her best drill sergeant voice. Tyr gave a twitch, quickly smothered.
They glanced at each other, and then swept in, boots ringing on the wooden floor. Tarek had snapped into a rigid, purely reflexive stance, feet together, chin up, and staring straight ahead. It took her a second to remember they weren't really following the chain of command in this place, and by then Tyr and Serrano were standing in the middle of the living room and watching her, and they were the biggest threat.
"If you traumatize the cook we'll have to do the cooking ourselves," Serrano said, tone mild, hands joined behind her back. She nodded toward Tyr. "He might poison us all."
Tyr snorted, but went with it. "Not my fault you can't do a thing with field rations. They're not edible food to start with."
There; defused. Tarek was relaxing slowly, though she still watched them with faint wariness; after a second she raked her hand through gleaming black curls, breathed out, turned back to the cook who still stood in his corner. "... My apologies. I'm -- I'm a bit -- particular. About some things."
"I'm sure Michael understands, Soraya," the civilian woman said in a soothing voice, even as she threw Tyr and his companion quick, intrigued looks. "Everyone is a little tense for the first days in a new environment, it's normal. Why don't you show him how it ought to go?"
Tarek had gone flushed and embarrassed; she threw them a little glance from underneath her lashes, unmoving. Tyr turned away, wandered to the mantle of the old, cold chimney. A few lonely trinkets stood there, random and out of place and no doubt deliberately dropped there to provide conversation pieces; the personnel in charge of remodeling and furnishing the house would have cleared out the previous owner's forgotten belongings.
He picked up a glass dolphin and angled it into the light to watch the gradations of sea colors from different angles, pretending to find it interesting. Serrano joined him, leaning a hip against the side of the chimney, arms crossed loosely. She was holding her back to the scene so he'd have an excuse to glance their way without looking like he was doing just that. Tyr saw the civilian woman note that, too.
Behind her Tarek and the cook were taking away food plates and cutlery and then setting them down again. Tarek looked embarrassed, uneasy, the cook baffled, though he seemed solid enough that he'd already gotten over the fear or resentment of being cornered and was going along with it very patiently. (That, or he didn't know what Tarek would have done to him, because she was a girl and he was a very solid man in his forties with quite a few pounds on her, and he couldn't imagine she could have killed him with both hands tied behind her back. Tyr preferred to think the highers-up in charge of this little adventure wouldn't assign people with no goddamn clue what they were in for.)
The woman gave Tyr a pleasantly professional smile across the room and drifted through to them. Tyr threw Serrano a warning glance so she could turn around in time.
"It's nice to meet you. I'm Marian Drey."
She was blonde, small, unthreatening; she wore heels, for one thing, and her knee-length skirt was narrow enough to hinder her running some. "You're the psychiatrist."
She didn't blink, expression unchanged, which was enough of a tell as it was. "Yes, I am. Is that a problem?"
Tyr exchanged another look with Serrano. "Guess not."
The way she looked from one to the next, she didn't look like his lukewarm response had convinced her. Serrano was still impassive, showing nothing much.
"I hope it won't become one. I'm here to help." She waited a second, to see how they took it; they waited for more. Drey's voice dropped, went a little more serious, telling them something in confidence. "Between you and I, though, you don't need me to tell you... There have been very few studies made of people in your specific situations. We're all learning together, it seems." Another small, commiserating smile, one that seemed to say 'we're on the same side.'
"Hm. Better if we help?"
"Of course. Cooperation is always more efficient."
"Alright. Advice?"
It didn't take her a whole second to realize he was offering her some, not asking. "Sure. I'd be glad."
"Don't come behind someone who was on a battlefield and grab them."
The wince she showed next didn't look so smooth and polished. "... I do know better than to do that," she admitted. Made Tyr relax a little bit. Was nice to know she realized her own lapse and hadn't really needed it pointed out, too. "It all went a bit fast. She knew I was there, she could still see me, but I still should have known better."
Serrano shrugged her shoulder, still leaning her weight on the chimney, spine loose. "You wouldn't have moved her, anyway. Got our stats? Weight lifting, things like that?"
"Yes, I--"
"Just numbers, or vids? Because numbers never talk as much as seeing a scrawny woman lift a bodybuilder off the floor by the throat."
Drey's smile went rueful. "Just numbers. I'll be sure to request videos."
"Or I could demonstrate!" Keller offered loudly from right behind him. Tyr whirled around. The bastard was at his back! How the hell, he was facing the doors --
Oh. The window had been closed; now it was open (from the outside? Damn it) the man leaning casually on the windowsill from the outside, his cheek propped up on his hand and a smirk on his lips daring people to erase it from his face.
Behind him Serrano had gone tense all over, fists pressed to her thighs. She stepped away from the chimney to stand with her feet apart, facing Keller straight-on, except her head was tilted just a little to the side...
She should have seen him coming, seen him open the window -- Tyr would have expected her to -- except Keller had somehow managed to fit himself right in her blind spot. Tyr's fault for not remembering her angle of view would be narrower now.
A grab, a heave, and Keller was swinging in through the window. Tyr's eyes narrowed in annoyance when he suddenly crowded their corner of the room, making Serrano's shoulders square defensively.
"Are you really that bored, Keller?" he asked, frowning a little bit.
"There's only so many naps I can take in one day." He turned his most charming smile onto the psychiatrist. It didn't manage to make him look any more harmless to Tyr's eyes. "Hello there, Doc. Nice to meetcha. So, interested in a demonstration?"
Serrano groaned quietly. "Are you planning on bringing her a mammoth and offering she visit your cave, too?"
"Serrano," Tyr said quietly. She breathed out and stilled. Keller was watching her patiently, head tilted, a faint smirk on his lips. Tyr was vaguely tempted to kick him. Wouldn't do to stop her from starting a fight and then start one of his own, though. "I think they're done with the table. Let's just eat."
"You never let me have any fun," Keller complained half-seriously.
"I'm mean that way," Tyr agreed placidly, and herded the three of them to the table. "Tarek. Everything set up?"
She stood by the u-shaped table; seven plates were set at identical intervals, one at the end and the other six rigorously mirroring each other. Everything was lined up with five-stars restaurant precision. She seemed more relaxed, though there was a bitter downturn to her lip. "Yes, sir -- ah."
"You don't have to sir me. You'd have to sir Serrano and Keller too." He threw the blond man a glance. "Especially Keller."
"Pff. He loves me, really." Keller reached out to grab a chair. Tarek tensed up.
"Dian, please? ... may I call you Dian?" Tyr got the feeling that Keller didn't like being called Dian very much, but he smiled back at Doctor Drey anyway, polite and meaningless. "Soraya set this up, perhaps she also came up with a seating order?"
"Yes," Tarek confirmed, though it was visibly difficult for her to push it out. "If you don't mind."
... Okay. Why not. Tyr shrugged. It seemed to matter less to him than to her.
Doctor Drey was directed to sit at one of the ends of the U, Keller next to her. The next spot was left empty for Sullivan, the guy who hadn't come down to dinner yesterday despite how mandatory it supposedly was; Serrano got to sit at the bend of the U, Tyr right next to her; an empty spot facing Keller for Doctor Abram, who'd gone to fetch Sullivan something like ten minutes ago and still wasn't back, and the last spot facing Drey went to Tarek.
And then they waited for the two missing guests. Tyr distracted himself from the smell of warm food rising from waiting plates by trying to decide if and how much they'd bugged the place, and where snipers would be hiding. The room was wide enough it crossed the whole width of the house, and the table was in the perfect place to be strafed from both east and west windows.
"Maybe someone should go and check on them," Tarek eventually suggested, eyebrows furrowed, but just as Tyr was getting up to do just that, he heard planks creak and a door open; he sat back down.
A man Tyr gathered to be Sullivan stalked in, and then froze two steps from the doorway, staring. Of course everyone at the table was looking at him; still, that his first reaction was to bare his teeth in a silent, challenging snarl made Tyr frown a little.
He wasn't tall, or especially slender -- Tyr was both taller and more wiry, Sullivan obviously had some meat on his bones -- but his hair was fire-red, almost, a gwel color if there ever was one, cropped so short his scalp showed through.
Tyr supposed if he had the misfortune of being that redheaded he'd be suspicious of people staring at him as a group, too. He returned the man's challenging glare with a bland one and then turned away, back to his empty plate, even though it itched between his shoulder blades to turn his back on an angry stranger.
"Mister Sullivan," Doctor Drey greeted with a friendly, if subdued smile. "Will you please sit?"
He had a choice between the seat beside Tyr and the one in front of him. Great. Sullivan stalked his way around the table without a word, brushing by way too close to Serrano's back. She stared straight ahead and pretended she didn't notice. If Tyr had had hackles they would all be up and he wasn't even sure why.
Doctor Abram took her place at Tyr's side with a polite murmur of greeting. Tarek stood up without a word and started serving people. Doctor Drey turned to Keller and started trying to engage him in polite talk.
Huh. Looked sort of like they were arranged by hair color. Doctor Drey's low chignon a pale blond, Keller's ponytail honey-dark, Sullivan's red, Serrano's warm, lighter brown ponytail, his dull brown bristles, prematurely graying at the temples, Doctor Abram's so-dark-it-looked-black-in-the-right-light perm and then Tarek's actually-black, raked-back curls.
Blah blah how are you doing, do you like your rooms okay, anything you guys want to suggest improvements on oh of course it's just the start but it's never too early to refine the process haha...
... It was very silent at the round end of the table. Tyr didn't especially want to talk to Sullivan, who still radiated hostility anyway, and didn't need to speak with Serrano. They were both mindful to avoid eye contact with him; he kept glaring around with suspicion, ready to snarl at the first who caught his eye. Tyr just concentrated on his food.
"Tarek. You help cook?"
"Ah -- yeah, a bit."
"S'good."
... Doctor Drey was looking at him again like he'd done something interesting. Okay, what for. No matter. He was still a little hungry, so he reached for the plate of meat; a few slices still waited there.
His hand and Sullivan's bumped. Their eyes met.
Sullivan started growling, a strange rumbling sound that felt like it should make glass vibrate. Tyr's eyes narrowed.
On one hand, triggering someone else at the lunch table was a bad idea. Especially over something as stupid as who got to serve themselves a second helping first; there was enough left for both and then some.
On the other hand, like fuck he was looking down first.
"You're slipping, Sullivan," he snapped. "Rein yourself in."
He was vaguely aware both doctors were talking to them, trying to reason them down. He wasn't listening.
When Keller heaved a huge sigh and leaned in to wave his hand between the two of them Tyr almost slapped said hand down into the table. Sullivan jerked around to stare down Keller, snarled louder; there might have been words lost in there, 'back off' or 'mind your own business' maybe, but they came out disturbingly garbled, like he wasn't even hearing himself anymore.
Keller grinned, wide and toothy and completely at ease. "Shut the fuck up or I'll bite your face off."
He wasn't even kidding, was the thing. The words had come out with perfect, bedrock certainty. Tyr drew in a shocked breath, held it in.
Released it, slowly. Did it matter? Keller was in control, always in control, and not even struggling with it. He knew what he was doing. He knew the limits he should not cross -- even if he possibly avoided them more because they'd be a hassle than because of some (human) ingrained revulsion. He wasn't warped enough to hunt down civilian women and children for the pleasure of it (didn't act like it, at least,) so... so what?
"It's only the second day. Maybe we want to postpone the first fight a bit, hm?" said Serrano in the silence, and she resolutely stabbed her fork into her food.
Sullivan flipped around so fast Tyr didn't see his hand flying until the back of it hit the bandaged side of her face and her chair toppled over with a crash.
There was no thought between that moment and the next, landing on Sullivan after clearing the table with one jump, tackling him to the floor.
He wasn't even snarling. That would have been communication still, 'back off before you make me do something you'll regret.' He didn't need to snarl. He just needed to grab the man's chin, his jaw, and slam his head into the floor. Again. And again.
"Knife!" Serrano barked, and he rolled off the enemy and half under the table as the blade sliced through his shirt sleeve, and then she was there anyway with her steel-toed army boots, and since she couldn't judge distances and do precision work well while missing an eye she'd apparently decided to go for the center of mass and kick his solar plexus the way she would have a soccer ball. Sullivan's body jerked back and he briefly curled up around his stomach, heaving.
Serrano shoved the table back along the wooden floor so the intruder couldn't hide underneath. Tyr was up on his feet by now, and they started circling together, making testing feints, waiting for his knife-holding hand to stop slicing the air, to waver.
He could smell blood in the air. He could smell fear and anger and should-be-ours and not-ours and hate and craziness, that big black hole, that waiting beast.
Two against one and it wasn't running away, and if it wouldn't be run off, well then, they'd just have to kill it. They moved forward as one.
The gunshot was so loud and so close and so unexpected they'd dropped to the ground and dived for cover before either of them could think, training and survival instinct rushing back in, and shoving her back out. Position indefensible, allies -- was Serrano shot? Keller? -- the civilians, he needed to protect the civilians --
"The next one will go into someone's head."
Tyr had ended up under the table. He couldn't see a thing from the side of the room the new voice had come from, apart from Tarek's fatigues-clad legs, and the two doctors', Abram's slacks and Drey's bare knees and skirt. He crawled a bit closer. She had kept her cool, Tyr saw at his first, quick assessing glance; she'd herded the two doctors back into the farthest corner, now stood before them like a human shield. She wasn't hurt, and neither were either of her charges. Keller -- couldn't find Keller -- oh. Up there on top of the heavy oak bookcase. How the hell -- why -- never mind.
Serrano had dived for cover through the door that led to the kitchen; he saw her peeking through at him, fast, and then taking cover again. Sullivan was only just starting to look up from his own hiding place behind a chair, flat on the floor.
"Oh, fuck me twice. It's the pint-sized ice bitch from hell."
A second shot rang. Keller yelped. Tyr was rolling out of his hideout and jumping on his feet before he could think.
"Tyr no!"
Keller. Telling him no. In that tone he'd... never heard. (tyr no tyr stop come back) Had he? Alarmed. Dian Keller did not do alarmed. (don'tmakeme ohhell no)
He didn't know the woman perched in the window Keller had left open when he came in, but his first assessment had some truth. She was small. Not quite tiny, but possibly only because the epaulettes made her shoulders look wider, and the cut of the field uniform was not formfitting. Asian, five foot three, maybe four, aiming her gun straight at his forehead.
There were no size requirements for Theta Unit. Reaching his ear with the top of her head didn't mean she couldn't bench press ten times her own weight or snap someone's spine one-handed. Plus the handgun. Healing factor meant jack shit, something that caliber would make his head explode like a dropped egg.
"Andersen? Back with us?"
Tyr didn't take his eyes off her to glance at Keller, though he wanted to. Keller's dry tone said a lot, but he still checked. "Did she shoot you?"
"Nah, missed."
"Deliberately," the new woman pointed out.
The room was getting much too crowded for him. He could hear the whisper of many feet in the gravel outside, from both sides of the house. Surrounded.
If he dodged behind the couch and the bullet missed him, he had an even chance of tackling her out through the window before she could aim again. Hm.
"Lieutenant Andersen, I was against this experiment from the first," she said in a low, even voice. "Should you give me proof you are out of control I will have no problem putting you down, as you should have been from the start. Do we understand each other?"
"Hm." He tilted his head, considering her. Expressionless stare, hard face. Ready to shoot and kill down to her fingertips. "Yes."
Serrano was pressed against the doorjamb in the kitchen, ready to move at his word. Keller had dropped to the floor and stood a few feet behind him and to the left; he'd follow up if Tyr gave him an opening -- not really with Tyr but just because it would be an opening and you took those when you were handed them, was all. Tarek -- no, Tarek was shielding the civilians, and besides she was glaring at him.
Sullivan was climbing up to his knees. He was between Tyr and the new woman. He'd make an okay meat shield, if the couch didn't work out.
"You'll kill me if I lose control and endanger a civilian," he said quiet and patient and slow, so it would all be clear, so they'd all be on the same page; the woman nodded tersely. "I'll kill you if you endanger one of mine."
Her eyes narrowed, jet black and glinting. The barrel of her gun looked enormous.
"Thanks for the assist, Captain." He saluted.
After that he turned on his heel and swept out through all the mess of broken dishes and thrown food and through the kitchen door. His sleeve was wet with blood from a knife wound in his shoulder he hadn't even felt, he needed to check on Serrano, and part of him was very calmly considering the pros and cons of finishing off Sullivan before he became even more of a problem.
This was a bit worrying.
He wasn't worried. Should have been, and knew it. But no. He was so, so calm.
He was so, so hungry.
+
He'd be pissing blood in two hours, he knew it. Right now it was hard to care much.
Hard to feel anything much, to be honest. The suppressants were doing their job. Tyr sat beside Doctor 'call me Marian' Drey's desk and stared at the weird trinkets on it and didn't even want to pick up any. Or do much of anything but sit here, to be honest.
"So how are you feeling right now?"
He blinked slowly. Hm. Didn't really want to talk, but that was what he was here for. He knew he should, anyway, so he looked for a word.
"... Suppressed."
Drey repressed a smile. It didn't bother him if she found it funny, though. He shrugged.
"Had to take a double dose. I'm a bit..." He couldn't find a word, so he just waved his hand in the air vaguely.
"I see," she said wryly. "Perhaps we should see about adjusting the dosage then. There must be a middle ground between no effect and too much."
"Doesn't matter. In three days it'll have to be adjusted again."
She grimaced a bit. "I see. This isn't an easy situation." A pause; he gazed at the desk, the freshly repainted walls, neutral blue-gray. It still smelled. She'd hung a painting already. Cliffs and the sea at sunset. "Does it bother you if I take notes as we talk?"
"No. Go ahead."
"Thank you. This session is mostly about getting to know each other -- the type of person you are, your goals, what you hope for..."
"Thought you'd have read my file."
Drey paused briefly. "I did. It's a lot of dry facts and observations from outside perspectives, though, and as I haven't met most of those people I don't know their own personal biases either. It's very far from a complete or even accurate picture."
Tyr made a noise to show he'd heard.
Silence.
"I understand it isn't very easy to talk right now. Let's just go with easy questions to start with. How would you describe yourself as a person?"
Suppressants or not, he snorted then, though the irony was muted. "I wouldn't." She was watching him, though, from the other armchair, head tilted, patient. "... People can watch and make up their own minds. It doesn't matter."
"Why doesn't it matter?"
"Because I'll be dead in the end. Not gonna waste my time being anyone else but me. I don't..." He frowned, his line of thought fuzzing out into static for a second. "... Loner. That's one word. I'm fine on my own. Always been."
"Would Neve agree with this assessment?"
Tyr blinked, lifted his head to look at her. "Who?"
She briefly looked a little amused, a little chagrined at herself. "Lieutenant Serrano?"
"--Oh." He blinked again. That... huh. "I don't know. She's -- it's not the same. We're sort of... alone together. Most of the time."
"And the rest of the time?"
Her voice was still soft, patient, pleasant. She held her pencil poised over her notebook. Tyr hesitated.
"Like we're. I don't know. Connected to the same brain? The left hand doesn't feel less lonely because the right hand is here. Or not here. They're just -- existing together? I... it's hard to explain." The drugs didn't help. He rubbed his temple.
Drey scribbled something. Tyr thought if he'd been able to smell jack shit right now (if he'd been able to understand what he smelled) he'd have caught her scent shifting. Saying... he didn't know.
"What did you write?"
"Ah." She looked at him, smooth and polished and professional and patient. It was just a facade. He started to frown. "... We'll discuss that in a minute. I think it's important to finish this line of thought first. Did you ever have this kind of resonance with anyone else?"
"No."
"Now I know thinking back to today's fight might be unpleasant, but you said something I found important there at the end. You said 'one of mine'. Who are your people, Tyr, the ones you'd protect?"
... oh. Right. "The ones I'd kill to protect," he corrected absently. "... I don't know. Serrano."
"Anyone else? Perhaps Dian Keller?"
Now she looked a little more... tense. Expectant? Excited? He couldn't tell, all his senses were dialed too low. "... Maybe. I don't know. He's an ass." He thought back -- the Chinese woman, Captain Xiang. Threatening Keller, shooting at him. The hostility between them, more personal than what she'd showed Tyr himself, and Keller had insulted her first, but firing her gun was a disproportionate reaction, wasn't it, even if she wasn't aiming at anyone... "Depends. If it's his fault I'd let him deal on his own."
Another scribble, before she looked back up and smiled, a little brighter than he would have expected. "I know you haven't had much contact with Soraya Tarek, but what do you think of her so far?"
"... I don't know. She's competent. Temper, but not too bad. Is that the worst she gets?" He got an apologetic smile; of course, she couldn't discuss another patient's issues with him. He closed his eyes, leaned back against the back of the armchair. "Stable. And she covered the civilians first. That's --" Through the haze of drugs, a flash of shame, that he hadn't. But he'd been busy with the (intruder enemy prey) hostile. Good repartition of tasks, he supposed. "I can respect that, so maybe. Or maybe we just won't like each other."
Drey hummed thoughtfully. "So liking each other is important."
"... Of course."
"Do you like Dian, then?" she asked with a slight teasing smile. Tyr's lips quirked up briefly.
"When I don't want to kick him, sure. He's an asshole."
She chuckled. Tyr closed his eyes again, for a couple of seconds. He'd love to take a nap, but as unthreatening as she was, and as comfortable as the armchair was...
"And now," she said with a point of apology that made him open his eyes again, "I must ask you what you think of Rick Sullivan."
Double-dose of suppressants or not, Tyr's upper lip still curled at the corner.
"Tyr? I'm going to insist on actual words, please."
Words, for that? He couldn't find any that would explain enough. He frowned at her. He wished she'd just stay away from the man, but of course she would have to try talking to him too. She'd...
"Don't talk to him alone," he said; it came out abrupt. "Get a guard -- two, even. He's losing it."
"One might say you both let your tempers--"
"It wasn't temper!" he interrupted. "Serrano was just talking, trying to calm things down, and he hit her out of the blue -- didn't threaten, didn't tell her to back off first, he just attacked. He's not right."
That attentive face showed no sign of getting it. "Would you develop this a little more?"
"He -- he's wrong. Just wrong." He sighed. "You're not going to take me at my word."
He caught her biting the corner of her lip here, eyes thoughtful.
"... I might give your word a little more weight than you think." Drey nodded to herself, and then tilted the notebook toward him, tapped the sheet of paper. "This is what I was writing earlier -- parapsychic imprinting. It's something I believe is in the first stages of development between you and Neve. It's a kind of instinctive awareness that your partner is going to do something and so you ought to do your own thing to help it along. Some strains of therianthrope are prone to it, and some others not. Rick should have fit with you and Neve, as all three of you are the same strain, but you all rejected each other pretty much from the start, so there's a possibility there is indeed a problem of incompatibility there."
Tyr blinked. Imprinting? What? ... was this why the military kept breaking up partnerships? You'd think it would be an asset...
Oh. Right. Unless it interfered with the mission. Tyr thought about spending a month, six months with Serrano, and then having to use her as bait, or leave her behind to get killed because she'd gotten injured and was a liability. He wanted to think they would both do their duty anyway, they had both signed up with their eyes open and they knew Theta Company didn't bother with the easy missions, but it might be -- it might...
... Be a problem. For other people. Yes. Better not to tempt fate.
"Of course, the other possibility is simply that Rick was an outsider and intruding on a private bond, and there would have been no issue if you were all meeting for the first time and there had been no prior alliance for him to potentially disturb. Either way, as a doctor, I do have a duty to find and heal problems, but it doesn't make you wrong for feeling disturbed."
She left him alone for a little while to digest that. Tyr reclined in the armchair, eyes going unfocused. A psychic bond.
Mind to mind. But subconscious. Where you'd never notice it.
That was a gwel thing, too.
"... Can it be broken? The imprinting."
"Oh. Distance should do it, but... Tyr, do you really want to?"
"I don't know." No, he thought, no I don't, don't make me, but. "Is it what's making me like her?"
Drey gave him a smile. "I think you're taking it the wrong way around. Over half the people in Theta Company should be compatible that way with you, yet she's the only one this has happened with, isn't it?"
He relaxed a little. He was pretty sure Drey was guessing, but it was logical enough.
Still. Someone's mind in his. Pushing at him. Influencing. He was vaguely glad for the drugs now; he'd been feeling a bit queasy to start with, couldn't see a difference now. Besides, it dulled the vague things at the back of his mind trying to get into focus.
"What attracted you to each other at the beginning?"
Tyr shrugged, a little embarrassed; couldn't help but smile. "She laughed. Most people don't even notice when I'm joking, so..."
"It's no surprise. You're very deadpan, aren't you."
"Mmh."
He didn't want to be deadpan right now, he wanted to go crash in his bunk and sleep. Stop thinking. The drugs made things vague and shapeless, blunted, but it was harder to control where his mind went, and when the dose stopped being effective he'd still remember it.
The war. The gwel. His mind -- his self. The gwel getting inside his --
No. It had never happened. It was never going to happen now that he was off the frontlines. Besides that was what the therianthrope treatment was for, beside the strength and the healing. No space in his mind for anything but himself and the black hole, the one waiting for him to lose his grip. It'd be happy to devour anything else that tried to get in. Even if a gwel did try...
They hadn't, they never had, he would have remembered that.
"Tyr? Penny for your thoughts?"
There wasn't enough gold in the whole continent. "Just woolgathering." He made sure his face still showed nothing, refocused his eyes on the psychiatrist, who waited for him to look up with her little notebook, her knees primly pressed together; and the desk off to the side, not even between them, like Tyr was safe and she didn't need to protect herself from him.
"Is there anyone else you think of, when you think about your people? The people you need to protect?"
"That's... not necessarily the same thing."
He looked away. He'd failed her and Abram, earlier today; not really in going for the target first, but in forgetting so utterly they were there and might become collateral damage; it would only have taken one of the fighters starting to throw chairs around, or the table even.
"The civilians. The two of you and the cook, that driver kid. Any civilian. They're not mine. We should protect them anyway, but it's..." (black hole waiting, so hungry.) He breathed in to brace himself, wetted suddenly dry lips. "... something my old Captain told me. We live to guard the flock. It's the only reason -- the only -- we can't turn on it, or we're just..."
"You're just?" Drey encouraged in a whisper, leaning toward him, the notebook pressed tight to her chest.
"Just wolves," he rasped back, and then he was up on his feet somehow. He needed to leave, so he left.
there's a therapist in there and i'm all :/ that she might seem unprofessional or newbieish or flaky which was not my intention, and the setup of the house itself pings me as somewhat slapdash and unprofessional, i'll need to study more how they would organize this (security, orderlies, etc) for better chances of success and safety. But there's character interaction in here which I like, even tho idk if this is the best way to introduce Xiang either. :(((
I like Tarek enough that I might keep her around tho. She wasn't supposed to but hey. XD
part 1
They'd met Tarek the previous evening at dinner. She was a young woman, twenty year old at most, but tall, curvy to the point of statuesque. Middle Eastern origin, olive skin, short, curly dark hair, even darker eyes -- steady, watchful, rather quiet. Very deliberate, precise in her every gesture. He could see her on the bomb squad, she was that steady.
"--told you not like that!" she was snarling at the cook, looming over him with teeth showing. A small woman in a business-casual vest-and-skirt ensemble was attempting to touch her arm and calm her down, but Tarek only yanked her arm away before the other woman made contact with her bare elbow. Muscles in her jaw went tense, bulged. "Don't touch me."
"Soraya, please, we can just do it again, there's no need to get angry--"
Tyr glanced at Serrano, who stood in the doorway with him, her eyebrow arched. She glanced back, rolled her eye a bit. Civilians. Being grabbed from behind? She was lucky Tarek hadn't elbowed her in the throat instead.
The argument continued. Over... dropped cutlery? The order of plates? Tyr was sure he was missing something. The other therianthrope looked furious enough, though. On the edge of losing it, maybe, but wading into it just might make her lose it faster, and the way she'd cornered that man...
It'd be hard to get her to abandon her prey, if she was that far gone. Tyr started scanning the room, the position of the chairs and table and couch. At least Tarek wasn't in direct sight of the window, so she couldn't be shot from the outside, but that meant they had to fix this now --
"Attention!" Serrano snapped without warning, in her best drill sergeant voice. Tyr gave a twitch, quickly smothered.
They glanced at each other, and then swept in, boots ringing on the wooden floor. Tarek had snapped into a rigid, purely reflexive stance, feet together, chin up, and staring straight ahead. It took her a second to remember they weren't really following the chain of command in this place, and by then Tyr and Serrano were standing in the middle of the living room and watching her, and they were the biggest threat.
"If you traumatize the cook we'll have to do the cooking ourselves," Serrano said, tone mild, hands joined behind her back. She nodded toward Tyr. "He might poison us all."
Tyr snorted, but went with it. "Not my fault you can't do a thing with field rations. They're not edible food to start with."
There; defused. Tarek was relaxing slowly, though she still watched them with faint wariness; after a second she raked her hand through gleaming black curls, breathed out, turned back to the cook who still stood in his corner. "... My apologies. I'm -- I'm a bit -- particular. About some things."
"I'm sure Michael understands, Soraya," the civilian woman said in a soothing voice, even as she threw Tyr and his companion quick, intrigued looks. "Everyone is a little tense for the first days in a new environment, it's normal. Why don't you show him how it ought to go?"
Tarek had gone flushed and embarrassed; she threw them a little glance from underneath her lashes, unmoving. Tyr turned away, wandered to the mantle of the old, cold chimney. A few lonely trinkets stood there, random and out of place and no doubt deliberately dropped there to provide conversation pieces; the personnel in charge of remodeling and furnishing the house would have cleared out the previous owner's forgotten belongings.
He picked up a glass dolphin and angled it into the light to watch the gradations of sea colors from different angles, pretending to find it interesting. Serrano joined him, leaning a hip against the side of the chimney, arms crossed loosely. She was holding her back to the scene so he'd have an excuse to glance their way without looking like he was doing just that. Tyr saw the civilian woman note that, too.
Behind her Tarek and the cook were taking away food plates and cutlery and then setting them down again. Tarek looked embarrassed, uneasy, the cook baffled, though he seemed solid enough that he'd already gotten over the fear or resentment of being cornered and was going along with it very patiently. (That, or he didn't know what Tarek would have done to him, because she was a girl and he was a very solid man in his forties with quite a few pounds on her, and he couldn't imagine she could have killed him with both hands tied behind her back. Tyr preferred to think the highers-up in charge of this little adventure wouldn't assign people with no goddamn clue what they were in for.)
The woman gave Tyr a pleasantly professional smile across the room and drifted through to them. Tyr threw Serrano a warning glance so she could turn around in time.
"It's nice to meet you. I'm Marian Drey."
She was blonde, small, unthreatening; she wore heels, for one thing, and her knee-length skirt was narrow enough to hinder her running some. "You're the psychiatrist."
She didn't blink, expression unchanged, which was enough of a tell as it was. "Yes, I am. Is that a problem?"
Tyr exchanged another look with Serrano. "Guess not."
The way she looked from one to the next, she didn't look like his lukewarm response had convinced her. Serrano was still impassive, showing nothing much.
"I hope it won't become one. I'm here to help." She waited a second, to see how they took it; they waited for more. Drey's voice dropped, went a little more serious, telling them something in confidence. "Between you and I, though, you don't need me to tell you... There have been very few studies made of people in your specific situations. We're all learning together, it seems." Another small, commiserating smile, one that seemed to say 'we're on the same side.'
"Hm. Better if we help?"
"Of course. Cooperation is always more efficient."
"Alright. Advice?"
It didn't take her a whole second to realize he was offering her some, not asking. "Sure. I'd be glad."
"Don't come behind someone who was on a battlefield and grab them."
The wince she showed next didn't look so smooth and polished. "... I do know better than to do that," she admitted. Made Tyr relax a little bit. Was nice to know she realized her own lapse and hadn't really needed it pointed out, too. "It all went a bit fast. She knew I was there, she could still see me, but I still should have known better."
Serrano shrugged her shoulder, still leaning her weight on the chimney, spine loose. "You wouldn't have moved her, anyway. Got our stats? Weight lifting, things like that?"
"Yes, I--"
"Just numbers, or vids? Because numbers never talk as much as seeing a scrawny woman lift a bodybuilder off the floor by the throat."
Drey's smile went rueful. "Just numbers. I'll be sure to request videos."
"Or I could demonstrate!" Keller offered loudly from right behind him. Tyr whirled around. The bastard was at his back! How the hell, he was facing the doors --
Oh. The window had been closed; now it was open (from the outside? Damn it) the man leaning casually on the windowsill from the outside, his cheek propped up on his hand and a smirk on his lips daring people to erase it from his face.
Behind him Serrano had gone tense all over, fists pressed to her thighs. She stepped away from the chimney to stand with her feet apart, facing Keller straight-on, except her head was tilted just a little to the side...
She should have seen him coming, seen him open the window -- Tyr would have expected her to -- except Keller had somehow managed to fit himself right in her blind spot. Tyr's fault for not remembering her angle of view would be narrower now.
A grab, a heave, and Keller was swinging in through the window. Tyr's eyes narrowed in annoyance when he suddenly crowded their corner of the room, making Serrano's shoulders square defensively.
"Are you really that bored, Keller?" he asked, frowning a little bit.
"There's only so many naps I can take in one day." He turned his most charming smile onto the psychiatrist. It didn't manage to make him look any more harmless to Tyr's eyes. "Hello there, Doc. Nice to meetcha. So, interested in a demonstration?"
Serrano groaned quietly. "Are you planning on bringing her a mammoth and offering she visit your cave, too?"
"Serrano," Tyr said quietly. She breathed out and stilled. Keller was watching her patiently, head tilted, a faint smirk on his lips. Tyr was vaguely tempted to kick him. Wouldn't do to stop her from starting a fight and then start one of his own, though. "I think they're done with the table. Let's just eat."
"You never let me have any fun," Keller complained half-seriously.
"I'm mean that way," Tyr agreed placidly, and herded the three of them to the table. "Tarek. Everything set up?"
She stood by the u-shaped table; seven plates were set at identical intervals, one at the end and the other six rigorously mirroring each other. Everything was lined up with five-stars restaurant precision. She seemed more relaxed, though there was a bitter downturn to her lip. "Yes, sir -- ah."
"You don't have to sir me. You'd have to sir Serrano and Keller too." He threw the blond man a glance. "Especially Keller."
"Pff. He loves me, really." Keller reached out to grab a chair. Tarek tensed up.
"Dian, please? ... may I call you Dian?" Tyr got the feeling that Keller didn't like being called Dian very much, but he smiled back at Doctor Drey anyway, polite and meaningless. "Soraya set this up, perhaps she also came up with a seating order?"
"Yes," Tarek confirmed, though it was visibly difficult for her to push it out. "If you don't mind."
... Okay. Why not. Tyr shrugged. It seemed to matter less to him than to her.
Doctor Drey was directed to sit at one of the ends of the U, Keller next to her. The next spot was left empty for Sullivan, the guy who hadn't come down to dinner yesterday despite how mandatory it supposedly was; Serrano got to sit at the bend of the U, Tyr right next to her; an empty spot facing Keller for Doctor Abram, who'd gone to fetch Sullivan something like ten minutes ago and still wasn't back, and the last spot facing Drey went to Tarek.
And then they waited for the two missing guests. Tyr distracted himself from the smell of warm food rising from waiting plates by trying to decide if and how much they'd bugged the place, and where snipers would be hiding. The room was wide enough it crossed the whole width of the house, and the table was in the perfect place to be strafed from both east and west windows.
"Maybe someone should go and check on them," Tarek eventually suggested, eyebrows furrowed, but just as Tyr was getting up to do just that, he heard planks creak and a door open; he sat back down.
A man Tyr gathered to be Sullivan stalked in, and then froze two steps from the doorway, staring. Of course everyone at the table was looking at him; still, that his first reaction was to bare his teeth in a silent, challenging snarl made Tyr frown a little.
He wasn't tall, or especially slender -- Tyr was both taller and more wiry, Sullivan obviously had some meat on his bones -- but his hair was fire-red, almost, a gwel color if there ever was one, cropped so short his scalp showed through.
Tyr supposed if he had the misfortune of being that redheaded he'd be suspicious of people staring at him as a group, too. He returned the man's challenging glare with a bland one and then turned away, back to his empty plate, even though it itched between his shoulder blades to turn his back on an angry stranger.
"Mister Sullivan," Doctor Drey greeted with a friendly, if subdued smile. "Will you please sit?"
He had a choice between the seat beside Tyr and the one in front of him. Great. Sullivan stalked his way around the table without a word, brushing by way too close to Serrano's back. She stared straight ahead and pretended she didn't notice. If Tyr had had hackles they would all be up and he wasn't even sure why.
Doctor Abram took her place at Tyr's side with a polite murmur of greeting. Tarek stood up without a word and started serving people. Doctor Drey turned to Keller and started trying to engage him in polite talk.
Huh. Looked sort of like they were arranged by hair color. Doctor Drey's low chignon a pale blond, Keller's ponytail honey-dark, Sullivan's red, Serrano's warm, lighter brown ponytail, his dull brown bristles, prematurely graying at the temples, Doctor Abram's so-dark-it-looked-black-in-the-right-light perm and then Tarek's actually-black, raked-back curls.
Blah blah how are you doing, do you like your rooms okay, anything you guys want to suggest improvements on oh of course it's just the start but it's never too early to refine the process haha...
... It was very silent at the round end of the table. Tyr didn't especially want to talk to Sullivan, who still radiated hostility anyway, and didn't need to speak with Serrano. They were both mindful to avoid eye contact with him; he kept glaring around with suspicion, ready to snarl at the first who caught his eye. Tyr just concentrated on his food.
"Tarek. You help cook?"
"Ah -- yeah, a bit."
"S'good."
... Doctor Drey was looking at him again like he'd done something interesting. Okay, what for. No matter. He was still a little hungry, so he reached for the plate of meat; a few slices still waited there.
His hand and Sullivan's bumped. Their eyes met.
Sullivan started growling, a strange rumbling sound that felt like it should make glass vibrate. Tyr's eyes narrowed.
On one hand, triggering someone else at the lunch table was a bad idea. Especially over something as stupid as who got to serve themselves a second helping first; there was enough left for both and then some.
On the other hand, like fuck he was looking down first.
"You're slipping, Sullivan," he snapped. "Rein yourself in."
He was vaguely aware both doctors were talking to them, trying to reason them down. He wasn't listening.
When Keller heaved a huge sigh and leaned in to wave his hand between the two of them Tyr almost slapped said hand down into the table. Sullivan jerked around to stare down Keller, snarled louder; there might have been words lost in there, 'back off' or 'mind your own business' maybe, but they came out disturbingly garbled, like he wasn't even hearing himself anymore.
Keller grinned, wide and toothy and completely at ease. "Shut the fuck up or I'll bite your face off."
He wasn't even kidding, was the thing. The words had come out with perfect, bedrock certainty. Tyr drew in a shocked breath, held it in.
Released it, slowly. Did it matter? Keller was in control, always in control, and not even struggling with it. He knew what he was doing. He knew the limits he should not cross -- even if he possibly avoided them more because they'd be a hassle than because of some (human) ingrained revulsion. He wasn't warped enough to hunt down civilian women and children for the pleasure of it (didn't act like it, at least,) so... so what?
"It's only the second day. Maybe we want to postpone the first fight a bit, hm?" said Serrano in the silence, and she resolutely stabbed her fork into her food.
Sullivan flipped around so fast Tyr didn't see his hand flying until the back of it hit the bandaged side of her face and her chair toppled over with a crash.
There was no thought between that moment and the next, landing on Sullivan after clearing the table with one jump, tackling him to the floor.
He wasn't even snarling. That would have been communication still, 'back off before you make me do something you'll regret.' He didn't need to snarl. He just needed to grab the man's chin, his jaw, and slam his head into the floor. Again. And again.
"Knife!" Serrano barked, and he rolled off the enemy and half under the table as the blade sliced through his shirt sleeve, and then she was there anyway with her steel-toed army boots, and since she couldn't judge distances and do precision work well while missing an eye she'd apparently decided to go for the center of mass and kick his solar plexus the way she would have a soccer ball. Sullivan's body jerked back and he briefly curled up around his stomach, heaving.
Serrano shoved the table back along the wooden floor so the intruder couldn't hide underneath. Tyr was up on his feet by now, and they started circling together, making testing feints, waiting for his knife-holding hand to stop slicing the air, to waver.
He could smell blood in the air. He could smell fear and anger and should-be-ours and not-ours and hate and craziness, that big black hole, that waiting beast.
Two against one and it wasn't running away, and if it wouldn't be run off, well then, they'd just have to kill it. They moved forward as one.
The gunshot was so loud and so close and so unexpected they'd dropped to the ground and dived for cover before either of them could think, training and survival instinct rushing back in, and shoving her back out. Position indefensible, allies -- was Serrano shot? Keller? -- the civilians, he needed to protect the civilians --
"The next one will go into someone's head."
Tyr had ended up under the table. He couldn't see a thing from the side of the room the new voice had come from, apart from Tarek's fatigues-clad legs, and the two doctors', Abram's slacks and Drey's bare knees and skirt. He crawled a bit closer. She had kept her cool, Tyr saw at his first, quick assessing glance; she'd herded the two doctors back into the farthest corner, now stood before them like a human shield. She wasn't hurt, and neither were either of her charges. Keller -- couldn't find Keller -- oh. Up there on top of the heavy oak bookcase. How the hell -- why -- never mind.
Serrano had dived for cover through the door that led to the kitchen; he saw her peeking through at him, fast, and then taking cover again. Sullivan was only just starting to look up from his own hiding place behind a chair, flat on the floor.
"Oh, fuck me twice. It's the pint-sized ice bitch from hell."
A second shot rang. Keller yelped. Tyr was rolling out of his hideout and jumping on his feet before he could think.
"Tyr no!"
Keller. Telling him no. In that tone he'd... never heard. (tyr no tyr stop come back) Had he? Alarmed. Dian Keller did not do alarmed. (don'tmakeme ohhell no)
He didn't know the woman perched in the window Keller had left open when he came in, but his first assessment had some truth. She was small. Not quite tiny, but possibly only because the epaulettes made her shoulders look wider, and the cut of the field uniform was not formfitting. Asian, five foot three, maybe four, aiming her gun straight at his forehead.
There were no size requirements for Theta Unit. Reaching his ear with the top of her head didn't mean she couldn't bench press ten times her own weight or snap someone's spine one-handed. Plus the handgun. Healing factor meant jack shit, something that caliber would make his head explode like a dropped egg.
"Andersen? Back with us?"
Tyr didn't take his eyes off her to glance at Keller, though he wanted to. Keller's dry tone said a lot, but he still checked. "Did she shoot you?"
"Nah, missed."
"Deliberately," the new woman pointed out.
The room was getting much too crowded for him. He could hear the whisper of many feet in the gravel outside, from both sides of the house. Surrounded.
If he dodged behind the couch and the bullet missed him, he had an even chance of tackling her out through the window before she could aim again. Hm.
"Lieutenant Andersen, I was against this experiment from the first," she said in a low, even voice. "Should you give me proof you are out of control I will have no problem putting you down, as you should have been from the start. Do we understand each other?"
"Hm." He tilted his head, considering her. Expressionless stare, hard face. Ready to shoot and kill down to her fingertips. "Yes."
Serrano was pressed against the doorjamb in the kitchen, ready to move at his word. Keller had dropped to the floor and stood a few feet behind him and to the left; he'd follow up if Tyr gave him an opening -- not really with Tyr but just because it would be an opening and you took those when you were handed them, was all. Tarek -- no, Tarek was shielding the civilians, and besides she was glaring at him.
Sullivan was climbing up to his knees. He was between Tyr and the new woman. He'd make an okay meat shield, if the couch didn't work out.
"You'll kill me if I lose control and endanger a civilian," he said quiet and patient and slow, so it would all be clear, so they'd all be on the same page; the woman nodded tersely. "I'll kill you if you endanger one of mine."
Her eyes narrowed, jet black and glinting. The barrel of her gun looked enormous.
"Thanks for the assist, Captain." He saluted.
After that he turned on his heel and swept out through all the mess of broken dishes and thrown food and through the kitchen door. His sleeve was wet with blood from a knife wound in his shoulder he hadn't even felt, he needed to check on Serrano, and part of him was very calmly considering the pros and cons of finishing off Sullivan before he became even more of a problem.
This was a bit worrying.
He wasn't worried. Should have been, and knew it. But no. He was so, so calm.
He was so, so hungry.
+
He'd be pissing blood in two hours, he knew it. Right now it was hard to care much.
Hard to feel anything much, to be honest. The suppressants were doing their job. Tyr sat beside Doctor 'call me Marian' Drey's desk and stared at the weird trinkets on it and didn't even want to pick up any. Or do much of anything but sit here, to be honest.
"So how are you feeling right now?"
He blinked slowly. Hm. Didn't really want to talk, but that was what he was here for. He knew he should, anyway, so he looked for a word.
"... Suppressed."
Drey repressed a smile. It didn't bother him if she found it funny, though. He shrugged.
"Had to take a double dose. I'm a bit..." He couldn't find a word, so he just waved his hand in the air vaguely.
"I see," she said wryly. "Perhaps we should see about adjusting the dosage then. There must be a middle ground between no effect and too much."
"Doesn't matter. In three days it'll have to be adjusted again."
She grimaced a bit. "I see. This isn't an easy situation." A pause; he gazed at the desk, the freshly repainted walls, neutral blue-gray. It still smelled. She'd hung a painting already. Cliffs and the sea at sunset. "Does it bother you if I take notes as we talk?"
"No. Go ahead."
"Thank you. This session is mostly about getting to know each other -- the type of person you are, your goals, what you hope for..."
"Thought you'd have read my file."
Drey paused briefly. "I did. It's a lot of dry facts and observations from outside perspectives, though, and as I haven't met most of those people I don't know their own personal biases either. It's very far from a complete or even accurate picture."
Tyr made a noise to show he'd heard.
Silence.
"I understand it isn't very easy to talk right now. Let's just go with easy questions to start with. How would you describe yourself as a person?"
Suppressants or not, he snorted then, though the irony was muted. "I wouldn't." She was watching him, though, from the other armchair, head tilted, patient. "... People can watch and make up their own minds. It doesn't matter."
"Why doesn't it matter?"
"Because I'll be dead in the end. Not gonna waste my time being anyone else but me. I don't..." He frowned, his line of thought fuzzing out into static for a second. "... Loner. That's one word. I'm fine on my own. Always been."
"Would Neve agree with this assessment?"
Tyr blinked, lifted his head to look at her. "Who?"
She briefly looked a little amused, a little chagrined at herself. "Lieutenant Serrano?"
"--Oh." He blinked again. That... huh. "I don't know. She's -- it's not the same. We're sort of... alone together. Most of the time."
"And the rest of the time?"
Her voice was still soft, patient, pleasant. She held her pencil poised over her notebook. Tyr hesitated.
"Like we're. I don't know. Connected to the same brain? The left hand doesn't feel less lonely because the right hand is here. Or not here. They're just -- existing together? I... it's hard to explain." The drugs didn't help. He rubbed his temple.
Drey scribbled something. Tyr thought if he'd been able to smell jack shit right now (if he'd been able to understand what he smelled) he'd have caught her scent shifting. Saying... he didn't know.
"What did you write?"
"Ah." She looked at him, smooth and polished and professional and patient. It was just a facade. He started to frown. "... We'll discuss that in a minute. I think it's important to finish this line of thought first. Did you ever have this kind of resonance with anyone else?"
"No."
"Now I know thinking back to today's fight might be unpleasant, but you said something I found important there at the end. You said 'one of mine'. Who are your people, Tyr, the ones you'd protect?"
... oh. Right. "The ones I'd kill to protect," he corrected absently. "... I don't know. Serrano."
"Anyone else? Perhaps Dian Keller?"
Now she looked a little more... tense. Expectant? Excited? He couldn't tell, all his senses were dialed too low. "... Maybe. I don't know. He's an ass." He thought back -- the Chinese woman, Captain Xiang. Threatening Keller, shooting at him. The hostility between them, more personal than what she'd showed Tyr himself, and Keller had insulted her first, but firing her gun was a disproportionate reaction, wasn't it, even if she wasn't aiming at anyone... "Depends. If it's his fault I'd let him deal on his own."
Another scribble, before she looked back up and smiled, a little brighter than he would have expected. "I know you haven't had much contact with Soraya Tarek, but what do you think of her so far?"
"... I don't know. She's competent. Temper, but not too bad. Is that the worst she gets?" He got an apologetic smile; of course, she couldn't discuss another patient's issues with him. He closed his eyes, leaned back against the back of the armchair. "Stable. And she covered the civilians first. That's --" Through the haze of drugs, a flash of shame, that he hadn't. But he'd been busy with the (intruder enemy prey) hostile. Good repartition of tasks, he supposed. "I can respect that, so maybe. Or maybe we just won't like each other."
Drey hummed thoughtfully. "So liking each other is important."
"... Of course."
"Do you like Dian, then?" she asked with a slight teasing smile. Tyr's lips quirked up briefly.
"When I don't want to kick him, sure. He's an asshole."
She chuckled. Tyr closed his eyes again, for a couple of seconds. He'd love to take a nap, but as unthreatening as she was, and as comfortable as the armchair was...
"And now," she said with a point of apology that made him open his eyes again, "I must ask you what you think of Rick Sullivan."
Double-dose of suppressants or not, Tyr's upper lip still curled at the corner.
"Tyr? I'm going to insist on actual words, please."
Words, for that? He couldn't find any that would explain enough. He frowned at her. He wished she'd just stay away from the man, but of course she would have to try talking to him too. She'd...
"Don't talk to him alone," he said; it came out abrupt. "Get a guard -- two, even. He's losing it."
"One might say you both let your tempers--"
"It wasn't temper!" he interrupted. "Serrano was just talking, trying to calm things down, and he hit her out of the blue -- didn't threaten, didn't tell her to back off first, he just attacked. He's not right."
That attentive face showed no sign of getting it. "Would you develop this a little more?"
"He -- he's wrong. Just wrong." He sighed. "You're not going to take me at my word."
He caught her biting the corner of her lip here, eyes thoughtful.
"... I might give your word a little more weight than you think." Drey nodded to herself, and then tilted the notebook toward him, tapped the sheet of paper. "This is what I was writing earlier -- parapsychic imprinting. It's something I believe is in the first stages of development between you and Neve. It's a kind of instinctive awareness that your partner is going to do something and so you ought to do your own thing to help it along. Some strains of therianthrope are prone to it, and some others not. Rick should have fit with you and Neve, as all three of you are the same strain, but you all rejected each other pretty much from the start, so there's a possibility there is indeed a problem of incompatibility there."
Tyr blinked. Imprinting? What? ... was this why the military kept breaking up partnerships? You'd think it would be an asset...
Oh. Right. Unless it interfered with the mission. Tyr thought about spending a month, six months with Serrano, and then having to use her as bait, or leave her behind to get killed because she'd gotten injured and was a liability. He wanted to think they would both do their duty anyway, they had both signed up with their eyes open and they knew Theta Company didn't bother with the easy missions, but it might be -- it might...
... Be a problem. For other people. Yes. Better not to tempt fate.
"Of course, the other possibility is simply that Rick was an outsider and intruding on a private bond, and there would have been no issue if you were all meeting for the first time and there had been no prior alliance for him to potentially disturb. Either way, as a doctor, I do have a duty to find and heal problems, but it doesn't make you wrong for feeling disturbed."
She left him alone for a little while to digest that. Tyr reclined in the armchair, eyes going unfocused. A psychic bond.
Mind to mind. But subconscious. Where you'd never notice it.
That was a gwel thing, too.
"... Can it be broken? The imprinting."
"Oh. Distance should do it, but... Tyr, do you really want to?"
"I don't know." No, he thought, no I don't, don't make me, but. "Is it what's making me like her?"
Drey gave him a smile. "I think you're taking it the wrong way around. Over half the people in Theta Company should be compatible that way with you, yet she's the only one this has happened with, isn't it?"
He relaxed a little. He was pretty sure Drey was guessing, but it was logical enough.
Still. Someone's mind in his. Pushing at him. Influencing. He was vaguely glad for the drugs now; he'd been feeling a bit queasy to start with, couldn't see a difference now. Besides, it dulled the vague things at the back of his mind trying to get into focus.
"What attracted you to each other at the beginning?"
Tyr shrugged, a little embarrassed; couldn't help but smile. "She laughed. Most people don't even notice when I'm joking, so..."
"It's no surprise. You're very deadpan, aren't you."
"Mmh."
He didn't want to be deadpan right now, he wanted to go crash in his bunk and sleep. Stop thinking. The drugs made things vague and shapeless, blunted, but it was harder to control where his mind went, and when the dose stopped being effective he'd still remember it.
The war. The gwel. His mind -- his self. The gwel getting inside his --
No. It had never happened. It was never going to happen now that he was off the frontlines. Besides that was what the therianthrope treatment was for, beside the strength and the healing. No space in his mind for anything but himself and the black hole, the one waiting for him to lose his grip. It'd be happy to devour anything else that tried to get in. Even if a gwel did try...
They hadn't, they never had, he would have remembered that.
"Tyr? Penny for your thoughts?"
There wasn't enough gold in the whole continent. "Just woolgathering." He made sure his face still showed nothing, refocused his eyes on the psychiatrist, who waited for him to look up with her little notebook, her knees primly pressed together; and the desk off to the side, not even between them, like Tyr was safe and she didn't need to protect herself from him.
"Is there anyone else you think of, when you think about your people? The people you need to protect?"
"That's... not necessarily the same thing."
He looked away. He'd failed her and Abram, earlier today; not really in going for the target first, but in forgetting so utterly they were there and might become collateral damage; it would only have taken one of the fighters starting to throw chairs around, or the table even.
"The civilians. The two of you and the cook, that driver kid. Any civilian. They're not mine. We should protect them anyway, but it's..." (black hole waiting, so hungry.) He breathed in to brace himself, wetted suddenly dry lips. "... something my old Captain told me. We live to guard the flock. It's the only reason -- the only -- we can't turn on it, or we're just..."
"You're just?" Drey encouraged in a whisper, leaning toward him, the notebook pressed tight to her chest.
"Just wolves," he rasped back, and then he was up on his feet somehow. He needed to leave, so he left.
no subject
The description of Sullivan as a black hole of wrongness (to paraphrase a bit) is very interesting. It's like he isn't human, but he isn't wholly wolf either -- wolves aren't that irrational. Maybe rabid would be a better comparison? If you can't find a balance, you just spiral down into raw id and nightmares or something. Which would definitely be something for the discharged therianthropes to worry about.
I also like the background hints about the Gwel and the setup of the world -- the prejudice against red hair and so on.
no subject
I like that Tarek doesn't like Tyr much right now because HE LOST CONTROL THAT IS SO SLOPPY >:( like... she just did the same thing so she feels guilty about that reaction, but she wasn't hurting that poor helper dude yet either, and she didn't forget to shield the civilians! she's so big on controlling every single thing for fear of landing into were-fail psychosis she gave herself pretty bad OCD. At the moment it's not even the worst coping mechanism she could have found either, by far.
Sullivan meanwhile was not compatible with the animal they gave him (they didn't know it mattered!), and he's a hostile, contrary asshole with a bad case of PTSD, none of which helps, and even if he had been compatible he's refusing to accept its existence even a little bit so... yeah, he's never going to be a werewolf. He's going to be an uncontrollable panicky/furious murder machine up until the first transformation kills him or someone shoots him in the head a half-dozen times. :X it's uh, actually the most common response the military dudes have seen, by far. go off your meds, go crazy, welp.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
(The therapist seems perfectly adequate to me. Not perfect, not necessarily a shining star of the field, but a good one. Owning up to missteps, being apologetic about the more difficult questions which are probably necessary for a military report, staying submissive/unthreatening, showing him information he wants but refusing to discuss other patients... there are several schools of theraputic technique, but no matter which school she's trained in, she needs to establish a rapport and be trustworthy. There are bad therapists out there, the kind with agendas about "fixing" people to whatever extroverted/heterosexual/cisgendered definition of "normal" the therapist and often parents deem fit, and there are Hollywood therapists, but yours is neither of these nor is she pinging any other red flags for me.) (She's facing challenge enough in the fact that none of her patients are voluntary, so they're all starting at various levels of "hostile". It's not uncommon, though-- I had a therapist when I was thirteen, and we started off with me sticking my tongue out at him behind Mom's back. I didn't know ruder gestures at the time.)
As for the house, at this early stage they could very well have the ranch surrounded by snipers on rotation and some sort of chemical-bomb-bazooka brigade, rather than risk too many normal soldiers on an in-house detail. I bet there's very few spots inside the house that aren't in range of some weapon or other. The most optimistic projections would be something along the lines of "permanent bazooka garrison" and "ranch occupants coalesce into a pack who are totally not beholden to the military just in case, of course not" and "lots of ranches all over, one pack each".