[OPEN]

[dontpatr0nizeme]

Who: The Freelancers and anyone else
What: Nightmares
When: Through the Nightmare plot
Where: The Mother of Invention
Rating: TBD, potential warning for torture or other really bad things, as RvB Freelancer era isn't very nice

This is the Frigate Mother of Invention. The home base of the UNSC's top secret Project Freelancer. As much as the frigate might have been lively before, now it's full of eerily empty echoing halls, windows into the empty blackness of space, and alarms that seem to be going off all too frequent. The training areas have grown a darker, more sinister air. As for the medical areas and the research labs? You really don't want to go there.

[OOC: Okay, there will be specific nightmare threads within this that I'll be linking on the main post and I will put warnings if any of those might be too bad. If you'd like to join in from outside cast, either hit one of those or start a new thread. We'll be tagging around, and I'll link any new threads you might set up.]

Locker Room (York)  |  Ranking Board (South)  |  Implantation Room (Washington) (Warning, not sure how bad this might be)  |  The Director (Carolina)

Comments

[youfallback]

[Carolina does remember, reaches instinctively for the lighter where she keeps it on her person at all times. She brings it out and thumbs across the insignia with a frown underneath her helmet before glancing back up at him. ]

If I didn't have him, we wouldn't have been teammates, York. [Then this lighter might not have meant anything at all. They wouldn't have built up that trust between them, or the love that followed.]

[encryptedlock]

[Oh, she--she still has that. Funny. York could have sworn he had it. He gets back up to his feet, though he doesn't raise his arms to fight again just yet.]

You think I wouldn't have followed you if we weren't?

[youfallback]

I was just someone you met in a bar. [She still remembers that night so clearly, won't forget it any time soon. Handling the lighter gently she shakes her head at him,] This wouldn't mean anything if we weren't teammates. If it weren't for the Director.

[But the fact is that she kept the lighter since that first day they'd met and it'd meant something to her even before she knew they were teammates, before she really got to know him.]

[encryptedlock]

Funny. You still seem to think I wouldn't have followed you.

[The thing is, with his skillset - and his as-of-then undiscovered talent for working with AI - he could have had practically any position he wanted in the military. With ONI, probably (if he could get that honesty thing worked out).]

But we did join, and I don't regret a minute spent with you. We just gotta be careful so we don't end up regretting anything else.

[youfallback]

[Carolina glances back down at the lighter in her fingers before up at him again.]

I won't regret anything. [But even just saying it out loud is almost jinxing it. She tucks the lighter back away. No, she needs to spar, she needs to get better, not have conversations like this. Wasting time would result in regrets.

So she gets back into her stance, watching him.]

[encryptedlock]

[He doesn't say anything to that, just gets back into a battle stance. No regrets, huh?

They should all be so lucky.]

[youfallback]

[Starting off the offense again, she leaps toward him, much farther than she should be able to naturally like someone turned off the gravity. She doesn't really notice his lack of a response as she swings her leg toward him in another kick.]

[encryptedlock]

[York jumps back to avoid the kick, and it's pretty clear the gravity is off now. That's...the opposite of good.

He'll counter with a quick hop forward and a double-fisted punch at her navel.]

You don't have to do this, you know.

[youfallback]

[As he hops forward, Carolina's already moving and pivoting. She's never been one to stand in one place unless she has to, and when he punches both fists at her, she manages to step just barely to the right. Still, she keeps her momentum moving toward the wall, planning on him following her that half a step to possibly put him close enough. If he does, she'll try to take two steps up the sliding metal as a gainer to a back flip that she hopes will land her knees on his shoulders.]

[encryptedlock]

[Of course she knows his fighting style well enough to predict his movements. Of course she does. So he'll grunt under her weight when she lands, crumpling to the ground. He isn't giving up yet, though, attempting to throw her to the ground with him or, failing that, to at least jab up to hit her with his fists.]

[youfallback]

I have to do this.[Carolina will try to dodge those jabs, but while she's trying to pin him, she's pretty much stuck in one place and takes a couple direct hits to her face. One lands on the bottom of her jaw, knocking her head back and disorienting her for a moment.]

[encryptedlock]

You think you have to.

[He'll take the disorientation as an opening and try to flip her over so he can be on top (no, not that way).]

I'm not your enemy. I never have been. You gotta try to remember that.

[youfallback]

[The shift in position puts her even more on edge than she'd been before and suddenly she feels like she's not in power anymore. She strikes up toward him with a couple punches and then a double-footed kick, trying to knock him off.]

[encryptedlock]

[And of course it works, and York starts drifting up in the sudden lack of gravity.]

Carolina....

[youfallback]

[Carolina rises up with a sweeping kick aimed right at his chest, unable to see past beating him and impressing the Director and making sure she's the best she can be right now.]

[encryptedlock]

[Yep, just going to float away. He seems to be knocked out...or finally waking up from the nightmare.]

[youfallback]

[Carolina watches as he fades away from her view and slowly so does the rest of the Mother of Invention and the metal all around her, leaving her in the cold darkness before she suddenly wakes up. Surrounding her in bed is warmth, soft sheets, the breath of someone else quietly filling the air around her, and she sits up as quickly as she can. Her hands feel around for York, trying to find him in the sheets and for a moment she panics when she doesn't, but then her fingers bump against his side.]

[encryptedlock]

[He feels sweaty, almost clammy to the touch. The enforced sleep hasn't been at all restful to him, and at her touch he snaps awake, breathing heavily for a few moments before he takes a gulp of air and tries to steady himself. Delta's presence helps immensely with this, as it always does. Breathe, York. This is Paradisa, Delta's here inside your mind, and Carolina is alive and next to you and not crazy.]

What--

[youfallback]

[She doesn't speak outright, but lets her hand trail across his skin, feeling that thin sheen of sweat cooling him as she navigates her hand to one of his. Shaking her head, she tries to clear the nightmares out. She's not like that. She's not so focused on being number one that her team doesn't mean anything.]

[encryptedlock]

[It takes York's brain a good few long moments before he squeezes her hand back, weakly. That fight in the elevator--that hadn't happened for her yet. Right? Because if it had, she wouldn't be here with him right now.

He takes another deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. It was just a nightmare. These things happen.]

Sorry, I--had a bad dream.

[youfallback]

So did I. [Carolina silently wishes up a glass of water and holds it out for him as she reminds herself that she's here in the Castle. Still, she can't help but feel guilty, not only for things she did in the nightmares but the fact that she's sitting so close to him. Like those protocols still exist. Like the Director might be around here somewhere.]

[encryptedlock]

You, too?

[And of course since he's just torn himself awake, he remembers them in unusual clarity. The fight on the Mother of Invention. New York being attacked by the Covenant.

No. No, he's here in Paradisa. He takes the glass and downs it, though the cold water makes him shiver a little more. It's a good thing the lights are down, because he's looking pretty miserable right now.]

Sorry if I woke you up.

[youfallback]

No, I--- [She curls around herself a little where she's sitting next to him, even as she reminds herself that she's allowed to touch him, allowed to kiss him and hold him here. So, she cautiously reaches over for his shoulder.]

York, does... the elevator... [She licks her lips to wet them enough to speak.] I don't do that in the future, do I?

[encryptedlock]

[If she's touching him, she'll feel his shoulders tense up at the question. That should be answer enough, really. It's not exactly like that, no, but it's close enough to have caused a reaction like that.]

You saw that, too?

[Avoiding the question, go.]

[youfallback]

[The sudden tension in his shoulder answers it well enough and her stomach bottoms out, leaving a sucking vacuum behind.

Barely a whisper,] Yeah.