"What did they do to you?" I ask 'calmly', watching my sons beat the shit out of my old teammate almost dispassionately. Not that I'm not boiling inside, dying to know what the Federation did to warp the greatest man I've ever known like this. Rorke knows I'm tense. He knows me. Probably better then I know myself, If i'm being totally honest. David is probably far too into it, grunting as he drives his fist into the elder's flesh. He hates Rorke with the same fire I once trusted the man with. Logan remains stoic as always. Clinical. Detached in all the ways he really isn't. My little boy always did want to preform on Broadway. In a better world, he may very well have. Logan has always hated interrogation, for all his skill at it. Too personal, he'd whisper, too intimate. You learn far too much about a person when they're under the knife, Dad. And that's true enough. The big man gasps once, trying to draw breath into his aching lungs, and then decides that the appearance of 'weakness' isn't tolerable.
"The same thing you did," Rorke spits with wild, hateful eyes, "They set me free." He's got a scar on his eye that I don't remember, long and ugly. His lips are thinner, too. Worry lines deeper. We're getting old. But we're not there just yet. "You taught me a long time ago; Ghosts don't break," a spark of rage lights a fire in his eyes, glittering spitefully in the low light. "Now," I drawl like this isn't affecting me at all, "I'm gonna ask you one more time-" Gabe, Rorke cuts me off with an angry noise. "Everyone breaks, Elias!" he snarls at me, and something like pity curls in my gut for the briefest of moments before he choke-slams it into the dirt and kills it with a prejudice. "Why don't you ask your old buddy, Ajax?" he taunts, and it's everything I have in me not to shoot him then and there. "Well," he continues mockingly, "if he were still with us." Ajax was our brother! A member of the closest knit team under the sun. We were a family. We had each other's backs, and Rorke had stabbed him in his.
I shoulder past David roughly, checking him harshly as I try and fail to contain my fury. There are lines- lines that a man should never cross. Years ago, Rorke would have killed a man for disrespecting a fallen brother. But then he's hardly himself any more. "Grab his chair!" It's a harsh sound that comes from my mouth. Almost foreign. Logan hesitates for a fraction of a second, and rage has made me impatient. "Bring that bastard over here!" I order, and my younger son starts into action. Both of my boys seize a shoulder, the chair legs grinding against the metal floor with an ugly groan. And I slam the button to open the hatch. It whirs as the mechanics spring to life, wind roaring in my ears. Overpowering the booming heartbeat in my ears. There was a tiny, hopeful voice in me that had been whispering that maybe, just maybe my best friend could be saved. Redeemed. It's silent now, dead maybe. Ground into dust under the heel of an impostor.
Whoever the man in front of me is, he sure as shit isn't my brother. Not anymore. The wind is pulling at my shorn hair, beckoning. Pulling. My boys are still shoving that chair forward, the awful grinding lost in the whirlwind of air tearing around us with a vengeance. I watch a few papers go soaring out into the ether, never to be seen again. Nothing important, I'm sure. I can tell by the ramrod straight line of my old friend's spine that he's nervous. He knows me, but that's a double edged sword. I know him, too. Or at least I knew the man he used to be. And this, it seems, is a remnant of that man. Gabe was always the type to make himself big and loud when he was frightened- no matter how small that fear. The bigger he seemed, the louder he was, the safer he felt. And some things never change. "So this is how it ends, Elias?" Rorke roars over the cacophony. "You gonna throw me outta this plane?"
"You're going to tell me all about that dig site in San Diego," I tell him, knowing full well what his range of responses was. Unfortunately for me, I knew an answer wasn't in the cards for us. Rorke might have been afraid, but submission would never come from him. And sure as shit not to me. He'd sooner die, and we both knew it. I've moved away from the wall and the button, now. Close enough to see the beads of sweat on his brow as my boys push him past me. His cheek is already bruising. His grey t-shirt is sweat drenched at the collar- probably pitted out too. The reek of B.O. is, thankfully, hidden in the wind. I knew Rorke on a visceral level. Down to the very bones. I was sure of what his responses would be like, and maybe that's why what he actually said hurt so bad. "What, you gonna drop me Lieutenant? Again?" My head jerks back instinctively, like he's actually, physically struck me.
Silence reigns for a long few seconds. An eternity of moments lost to the roaring of the wind and the satisfied smirk on his face. Like he was a big man, real tough. Smarter then everyone else. I felt frozen. And then time snapped back into hyper-speed, my hand flying, open-palmed, to smack him across his stupid, sweaty face. "How fucking dare you?" I shriek and even though I can't see it, I know my face is an ugly, twisted amalgam of rage and disbelief. Rorke's eyes are wide, a red mark blossoming on the right side of his face from the force of my umbrage. His mouth is hanging open in surprise. If I thought I knew what his reactions would be, then he thought the same about me. And neither of us was expecting that. "How dare you?" I screech again, voice harsh and raw and real. Alive. There are lines. There are lines we do not cross, that no one crosses! And Rorke had taken a flying fucking leap over one of them.
"I loved you!" I snarl in his incredulous face, not thinking. Just feeling. This close, I can see his pores. Feel his breath. "I loved you! You were my friend! My brother!" And he says nothing. Just... gapes at me like he's never actually seen me a day in his life. My chest is heaving with the force of my breaths now, and I hear David say 'Dad,' quietly. Gently. I can feel Merrick moving toward us without even looking, so I throw my hand up and out to stop him. "That," I grind out, face flushed with wrath, "was a shit situation, and you know it! What the hell was I supposed to do, huh? Kill us all?" That wakes him up, and suddenly we're pretty much nose to nose. His eyes are a black pit, swirling with a myriad of emotions that I can barely parse through. Rage, yeah, and hurt. Confusion deep enough to drown in. Rorke's angry; hurting and confused and betrayed. He wants to hate me so badly that I can practically taste it on the air.
He opens his mouth to retort, and I grab his awful canvas jacket and pull. Pull so hard he would've come right out of the chair if not for me in his way. "No, Rorke," I spit. "You're gonna tell me what you would have done differently, or you're going to shut your fucking mouth for once in your goddamn life!" And then I shove him as I move away, chair teetering dangerously close to tipping him over. Logan dives forward and steadies it. Keeps our esteemed guest from going flying through thin air. I see it just as I'm about to turn around and slam the door closed again. It's a Federation Y-8, rising out of the clouds (somewhat ironically) like a ghost. Logan darts back and away from the yawning mouth of the door, eyes wide, and Rorke is still staring at me, brows furrowed like I'm a puzzle he just can't work out. The gunship is flanked by four f-15's, and I'm speechless. It's all about to go to hell. I really should have known better, but I wasn't thinking straight when I stepped on-board the plane and saw Rorke in person.
And then Logan pulls his handgun and tries to go one-on-one with a fucking gunship. He lets a few loose before the Federation aircraft launches four tethers, causing ours to practically drop right out of the sky. I cling on just long enough to see several black-clad Federation special operatives board before I go careening. I flail in the air for a moment, spinning and flipping uncontrollably, and I get one last look at Rorke, hanging onto that damn chair. Staring at me. My skin crawls under the weight of his gaze, and I force myself to roll over and yank on the ripcord of my parachute. The harness tugs at me roughly, bouncing me up like a balloon before I drift aimlessly downward. There are only three other parachutes below me- Merrick, Keegan, Hesh. I hope for the pilot's sake that he's already dead and not just unconscious. Nasty, messy way to go, if not. My heart jumps into my throat as I realize that I can't see Logan- that he was still gripping the floor of the plane like a lifeline last I saw him. I force myself not to look up. He's an adult. He'll be okay. I just have to believe that.
A request from GhostlyMax, who wanted a fic using the phrase "How fucking dare you?" I hope this was everything you dreamed of, lil buddy. Please leave a review! They make my day, and generally make writing much more enjoyable!