[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Two Can Keep a Secret (Closed, Javelin, Thunder)
Aug 7, 2021 21:53:30 GMT -5
Post by Thundercloud on Aug 7, 2021 21:53:30 GMT -5
Thundercloud was (by his own admission) dumb as a box of rocks. A brainless meathead. All brawn and no brains. A straight up dipshit.
But he was an observant dipshit. He watched people, he noticed things, he connected dots and picked out patterns. He was also all too aware of how other people watched him, how the gears in their heads would turn as they tried to puzzle him out with what little information they could glean from a glance. Most people, once they found out he was an ex-con, would give him this look - a quick once-over, like they could find out what he'd done to get locked up just by reading the lines of his frame. Hardly anybody ever had the guts to just come out and ask him, and even fewer had the audacity to openly speculate.
Javelin, though - she was probably the first person who had ever glossed right over it like it wasn't important.
Thundercloud blinked, unsure how to feel about one of his defining stigmas being regarded as a complete non-issue, but he didn't have long to dwell on it because Javelin was on a roll. He had no idea what kind of business she had been in prior to the war, he had never thought or cared to ask, but he'd be damned if she wasn't some sort of detective with the way she was nailing all her speculations. He actually raised his brows a bit, quietly impressed with the accuracy of her assessment.
In different circumstances, if he wasn't in such a shitty mood, he might have even given her some clout for it.
At the mention of Garrus, specifically how he and Carbine managed to get the hell out of it, Thundercloud's expression turned slightly sour. He clicked his tongue stud against the back of his teeth, his brows furrowing a bit as he found himself both perplexed and mildly irritated.
"Shit, he didn't tell you that either?"
Thundercloud couldn't think of any reason why Carbine would neglect to mention such a seemingly innocuous detail of their shared history, but then, Carbine seemed to operate on a totally different level sometimes. As close as they were, as in sync as they tended to be, Carbine had a lot of motivations rattling around inside his duct-taped noggin, and some of them he kept to himself. Not enough that Thundercloud felt like Carbine was hiding anything from him, just enough that he knew he wasn't fully in the loop.
"Dunno why, ain't like it's ever been a secret."
He also wasn't sure why it was relevant, but Javelin hadn't asked him any pointless questions thus far, so he figured she must have had a good reason for wanting to know.
"We made a deal with the devil. And that ain't a cute metaphor, we're talkin' some sell-your-soul to a fuckin' demon type shit."
His lip curled a bit, as if the memory put a bad taste in his mouth, but he swallowed it down and continued without skipping a beat.
"I lived in that hellhole longer than I ever did on Cybertron, I met all kinds of sick fucks, but the worst ones always stood on the other side of the bars."
He didn't elaborate on why, he didn't need to. Everybody knew about Garrus-1. Everybody knew about the corruption and the abuse and the gross misconduct - it's just nobody cared, because it was an acceptable atrocity. A palatable form of inhumanity - evil done unto evil. Bad things happening to bad people. The thought that the retribution was disproportionate never crossed people's minds, because that would require sparing a thought for convicts in the first place, and most people couldn't be bothered.
"The warden, he was one of 'em. We knew goin' in any offer he made was gonna screw us over, but we didn't care. We needed out. Garrus was goin' to hell, staff didn't see the point in runnin' a prison when the world had literally ended. Way it was shaking out, it seemed like they were either gonna jump ship and leave us to rot, or do us a favor and put a bullet in our heads first, if we were lucky. So when the big guy tells us we got another option, that we could go and get shot out in the open instead of in a fuckin' cage, we took it."
He smiled without humor, the look of it sharp and toothy, like a dog flashing a warning.
"They put trackers on us and turned us loose, but we weren't free. Just dogs on a long leash. Then, wouldn't you know it, the 'Cons came along and knocked the place over, grabbed up everyone that didn't sign on to be cannon fodder like me n' Patches did. Almost makes me wish we had turned the offer down, so we coulda been there to see 'em cut the warden's fuckin' head off."
Realizing that came out sounding a touch more psychotic than was perhaps flattering, Thundercloud shook his head and re-centered himself, breathing out a short, sharp sigh.
"Instead we took the high road, and now we get to see it smirkin' at us in our nightmares and in real fuckin' life."