hecu_marine | (no subject)

(no subject)

The remains of his hastily bolted dinner (headcrab jerky soaked in hot water and eaten in a corner of the base where he wouldn't be asked to make conversation) behind him, Gordon dusted off his hands and started making his way back towards the sleeping quarters. Whatever else the other rebels might be doing tonight, he was entirely too tired to want much more than sleep. He had a feeling Alyx felt much the same way. Might as well get some rest before that Combine data packet got cracked, or before the Combine forces themselves showed up.

About halfway there he made a detour. Men's room. Some things were more important than sleep.

Gordon had just finished at the urinal when the door slid open. He ignored it. Nobody needed a greeting in the men's room at this hour, frankly, and given that the other man didn't stop he figured they both felt the same way. It wasn't until he looked up from washing his hands that he realized the man who'd just zipped up wasn't dressed like any Resistance member Gordon had ever seen. As a matter of fact, he was wearing fatigues- the urban camouflage fatigues of the HECU Marines.

There was absolutely no way this could be happening. Absolutely none. And so he stood there, staring, until the other man looked at him with rapidly widening eyes. When he finally made a squeak of sound it was in response to the fact that Adrian Shephard had just hauled off and punched him, hard, before saying "Now we're even, Freeman," and stalking out of the room.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There aren't a lot of things that will get Alyx out of bed at this hour, after the day she's had.Gordon coming to bed with a black eye that he didn't have the last time she saw him? That's not at the top of the list, but it's definitely up there.

Thus, Alyx is stalking along the corridor in the general direction of the men's room, looking for the man responsible for all this.

The fact that she has only a vague idea of what a Marine looks like doesn't deter her in the slightest.

Probably the simplest way to tell is that he's the one who isn't dressed anything at all like the other rebels. Adrian could probably get a set of denims without much difficulty, but he's used to his fatigues, and he'll get out of them when it's time to clean or repair them and not a moment before.

He's currently looking for someone with a roll of duct tape or something else of that nature; his boots took a beating somewhere in the Scab sewers and he'd like to patch the holes at least temporarily before anything else happens.

She doesn't recognize the man and she doesn't recall seeing fatigues like those before. So, making an educated guess...

"You the Marine?"

"Huh?" Adrian glances up at that; he'd been too busy looking for tape to notice anyone else around. Stupid of him, to get that careless. Oh well. "That's me," he says. "Corporal Adrian Shephard, USMC, at your service."

"Alyx Vance. Resistance. Wondering why you saw fit to give my boyfriend a black eye."

Blink. Blink.

"Oh," he says, "so you're the voice I was hearin' in my head back at Milliways..."

That's not a response she was expecting. "What are you talking ab--"

She stops short. Something from the dreamlike blur of time rises to the surface.

"...that was you? That--that actually happened??"

"Sure did," says Shephard. "A man don't forget a thing like that when it happens to him, not without a whole lot of outside help. Looks like you got back to yourself okay, though, am I right?"

Alyx is still boggling, her anger on Gordon's behalf all but forgotten (for the moment, anyway).

"I--I don't--" She shakes her head. "It all feels like a bad dream."

"If it was, you'n me had the same damn dream at the same damn time. Weirdest thing I ever felt happen, that's for damn sure," Shephard agrees.

"I don't remember much of it... I don't think I do, anyway, it's all jumbled up..."

"Tell you the truth, Ms. Vance, it's kind of jumbled up on my end as well," Shephard says. "Like tryin' to remember what you were thinkin' about a week back, in the order you were thinkin' it."

"Guess I owe Chell an apology," she murmurs, more to herself than to him.

"Couldn't tell you, Ms. Vance. Last I saw of her she was headed to the women's barracks."

"Don't call me that. I'm twenty-three, for crying out loud."

She looks up at him. "I seem to recall telling you how I feel about Gordon... and that you shouldn't be pissed at him for defending himself against people who wanted him dead?"

Shephard sighs, and visibly restrains the urge to facepalm. "Ms. Vance, we're on an active base. It ain't any armed force I ever knew back home, but that don't change what it is. Until I know you well enough to call you somethin' else, or unless you got a title or a rank or somethin' I ought to be usin' instead, that is what I am supposed to call you. You want me to use somethin' else, fine, but I don't go assumin' I'm entitled to a stranger's first name at a time like this."

Then he lets out a long breath between his teeth. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, you did. Spent some time thinkin' about that since then, too."

"And?"

"'m over it now," says Shephard. "Guess I shouldn't've slugged him to begin with, but damn- a man only gets one chance like that in his life. Won't happen again, though, I figure the score's all even now."

...dammit, Adrian, Alyx was set to sock you in the jaw and you had to ruin it by being all reasonable.

"Okay," says Alyx after a long moment of silence.

Hey, you get yelled at about being a dick by a disembodied voice you can't shut out of your head, you'd start thinking long and hard about the benefits of being reasonable too.

"All right, then," he says. "Uh... look, you kinda caught me in the middle of somethin'. Know anywhere I could find some duct tape?" He indicates his boots. "Ain't about to ask for another pair, I just want these patched up in case they find someone else to fly that goddamn helicopter and I get to stay on the ground where I belong."

"Um. There should be some in the machine shop, or in storage..."

Shephard's mouth twists a little, wryly. "Thanks," he says, and, "Guess I wasn't quite what you were expectin', huh? I didn't come off at my best last time."

"I don't know what I was expecting," Alyx admits. "I've never met an actual Marine before. That I can remember, anyway."

"That's all right, it's probably better'n if you had," says Shephard. "Folks used to make all kinds of assumptions about us, on a whole lot of fronts. That shit that happened at Black Mesa didn't help none, either. Best just to start over from scratch, I figure. No old shit to overcome this way."

Unfortunately, starting over from scratch isn't an option for everyone.

Such as the one-legged black man strolling past who stops dead in his tracks when he sees Adrian.