tipstheodds | [RP] train-wrecked;

[RP] train-wrecked;

[ what harry remembers:

the gunshot had been extraordinarily loud in the train car. it'd taken him a few seconds to register what had happened out of shock, disbelief that it'd actually happened. his eyes had gone from lazaveric's face to the gun in his hand, then to nate's face and darted to the color blossoming on his shirt. he'd been so focused on the conversation, the let's gos not getting into nate's head to remember, even think about the monster on board, how much attention they'd attracted -

they'd fled back to a further car when the lackeys came out, huddling together behind a seat and nate had looked way too pale, too much blood on his shirt and jeans and hands and no time to do anything but clutch their guns and wait for a clear line of sight to go down shooting. there'd been more than a few times during this venture where harry had questioned the wisdom of dicking lazaveric over, but strangely enough that hadn't been one of them despite death staring them in the face.

then the car had exploded and things went black.

when he comes to he's cold, freezing to the bone and the wind's howling somewhere above his head. he's numb, but he works himself up onto his palms, something - what, is that snow? definitely snow, right, the train had been headed for the himalayas after all - sliding off him as he moves to gauge the situation. it comes out roughly to this: the train lays in pieces all around him, burning and half-buried. his head's pounding (that's a possible concussion) and he can barely feeling anything, and there's nobody at all. no thugs, no chloe, no lazaveric. no nate.

goddammit.

he forces himself to his feet, working sluggishness out of his limbs as he moves. ]

Nate! NATHAN! Where the hell are you, you dumb git?!

[ assuming he can answer. assuming he's not dead. don't you dare be dead. he moves forward, winding his way through the wreck, trying to make himself be heard above the screaming winds whipping around the mountain. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ the mark still stings, too, but honestly he just thanks his lucky stars she didn't go for the family jewels after hearing her version of what happened in nepal. he remembers jeff, the kid who wound up in an awful place at the worst time, how coldly lazarevic had executed him and the sheer terror he'd felt, wondering if he'd be next when the monster's eyes fell on him. but elena remembered him as a cold bastard holding nate at gunpoint and dragging chloe out instead of one of the men who'd been with them, trying to keep jeff alive in the chaotic war-torn streets.

it's strange, not remembering the things you've apparently done. a tad disturbing. ]

Well, I didn't leave you for a frozen corpse out on the mountain. How's that work? [ he sighs, puts the cup down on the stone wall and stands - he moves away from nate though, not toward, pacing with hands clasped behind his back. ] Look, I've got no idea what's going on here, just that I remember things much... much differently than you and Elena, apparently. [ he pauses. eyes on the sky briefly before a hand goes up to rub his cheek, and tacked on, just because: ]

She hits hard, you know that?

[Jeff... Another person he got dragged into this mess. Listening, he watches Harry, tries to find any hints of the heartless bastard who went from seeing him as an old friend to nothing more than a fly on the wall, the kind that needed to be gotten rid of immediately. It's hard to try and give him a chance but... Harry got him help. Why, he still doesn't know because Lazarevic has all of the things he needs and with this, he can't possibly need anything from Nate, right?

Trying to recompose himself, Nate lifts a hand, presses palm to his face so he can rub at it, tired and worn. The words pry a smile from his face and for what it counts, he nods.] She does have a mean hook.

[He wants to say what he knows: you shot me. Instead he keeps quiet after the agreement, thinking about what to say. Would it make him feel better if he beat all of Flynn's teeth out, threw him off a cliff? The answer is no, but a few moments in the snow doesn't erase months worth of betrayal, years of a friendship he thought he'd keep. ]

What's going on, Harry? Why are you here?

[ the agreement gets a small chuckle from him, the smirk that crosses his mouth something more genuine. from a girl used to nate's run of luck, though, he wasn't all that surprised to discover the fact. for a journalist she really knows how to handle herself.

the question, though, that's a difficult one to answer. one that he could usually answer with ease. he knows what nate means behind it because he knows what nate thinks he's done - why is he here, why is he helping after he shot him? but harry doesn't remember holding a gun at nate or firing, what he remembers is standing next to nate, trying to convince him to find some way off the train because obviously chloe didn't want to go when she shot him. with everybody else remembering awful things about him, why is he here? ]

I don't know. [ a shrug. ] Maybe I should've took off when no one was looking. Out in the snow I thought you were just delusional from bloodloss when you said I shot you but Elena's memories corroborates yours. I have no idea what's going on here, truth be told, and it'd probably be best if I headed for higher ground before someone gets sick of my face.

[ because honestly, he's surprised elena didn't shoot him. he would be more surprised at nate's lack of violence if he wasn't also acquainted with the man's morals, even in the most ridiculous of situations like this. he talks big but most of the time he lacks the bite to do anything, even when he has all the right to, and it's both confusing and irritating to someone like harry, it always has been. he likes nate but sometimes he really doesn't get him, wishes he could knock some sense into that thick skull of his.

or maybe he just wants to drag him a little further to his level out of spite. these days he's not so sure which it is, which it has been.

he shakes the thought off. ] Then again the only place I can go is back to the mountains, and that's not a particularly warming thought. Figuratively and literally.

-- Don't do that.

[There's a look of distaste at the comment and the idea of Harry just leaving after that because yeah maybe it'll take away the confusion but it won't get rid of it, clear it up completely. It'll only give Nate a chance to sweep it up under the rug like a lot of the bad memories he has but doesn't want to talk about. The ones he does like talking about are used for jokes, so that doesn't help either.]

You stayed for a reason, don't go changing your mind again. [Frown tight on his face, he breathes in through his nostrils and thinks about how to handle this, what to say and what to do. It bothers him, he'll admit it but at the same time he's mature enough not to tackle the other down and knock his lights out. ] Why... don't you start from the beginning?

If I don't like it, I get a free hit. [His hand lifts to extend but instead he settles it back, over the wrapped stomach wound.]

[ he blinks, a little surprised at being told off for thinking of leaving. it wasn't something he was exactly expecting. but at the request and the comment he grins a little, amused at the throwback to the promise made in the snow, nods his agreement. ] Sounds good to me.

[ he settles back on the wall, eyes going back out to the horizon as his hands clasp together, twiddling his thumbs as he considers how to start. hums softly to himself. ] The beginning, eh? All right...

[ so he starts from the beginning. hiring drake for the job with him and chloe, infiltrating the museum in the dead of night, making their way to the lamp. finding the map and figuring out what it meant, and - where their memories start to split - heading to chloe and the getaway van together. how an alarm had rung out in the middle of it, putting them on overdrive to avoid getting caught, how they'd barely made it back to chloe.

how she'd taken the map from them and sped off, leaving them at the mercy of the security, letting them rot in a prison for three months.

sully and chloe bailing them out, the initial distrust, infiltrating lazarevic's camp in borneo to get at the journals. (and a brief pause to express indignation at the replacement lazaveric had hired for him, because really, what was he thinking the man couldn't find his own ass with two hands.) escaping to nepal, the debacle with lazaveric and jeff and chloe being taken away, how he and nate had gone on the train to find her and the explosive end that'd taken.

he claps his hands together when he's finished, spreading them out in a shrug. ] And that's how I remember it. You may notice the lack of me ever pointing a gun at you.

[He listens, each and every detail of it so close to what he remembers, except not quite. Harry never makes himself out as the bad guy, it's Chloe that he's blaming. It almost sounds sincere and honest too, which is why it worries Nate a little more, the longer he listens. The museum, Borneo, being betrayed again and again, Jeff... Harry's not the bad guy in that story, and while everyone else would say 'I wonder why', Nate would like to believe that. Because that's the Harry Flynn he remembers and trusts.

His expression softens for a moment and he looks like he's about to say something along the lines of 'I believe you'. Then Flynn opens his big mouth again and his wound hurts with the words. Gritting his teeth, Nate shakes his head, hands clenching into fists.

The next thing eh knows, he's grabbing Harry by the collar, throwing him to the ground and there they are: two grown men wrestling in the snow.] Why did you--

[Nate's getting out words, half-sentences when he can. Why can't it be like that, why isn't that the truth', things like that. He knows it's stupid to believe he can have his friends on his side --all of them-- but he wants that.]

Harry, why does it have to be this way?!

[ no one could ever say harry flynn knew when to keep his mouth shut. he'd meant it as a light jab, he hadn't meant to hurt nate, but clearly he isn't ready to joke about the matter. he thinks he should have known that, but it's too late and he's on the ground, nate on top of him, wrestling and probably making the wound worse after it's just healed.

score one harry flynn for the stupid moves tally.

he struggles, avoids hits when he can and takes them when he can't, trying to get himself out from under nate so he can pin him and keep him from aggravating his wound again, because that's really the last thing anyone needs. ] Nate - Nate!

[ he manages to shove his weight against the other, flipping their positions, straddling nate's hips and grabbing his wrists before another punch can be thrown. he's wet and there's snow sticking in his hair and on his clothes, this position's a bit awkward, but for the moment that's not what he's concentrating. it's the last outburst that gets his attention, because again nate's showing genuine hurt, and that bothers harry.

because, y'know, for some reason he cares. ]

Okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have joked about that. But I swear what I said is the truth as I remember it. Look, obviously I can't say 'you can trust me' and have everything be right as rain, considering I'm a right bastard from your point of view. But - [ he hangs his head for a moment, heaves a sigh. harry flynn is not at all a touchy feely person but... ]

You're my friend, mate, though I do think you're bloody daft half the time. I wouldn't do that to you, even if it does mean Lazarebitch is gonna skin me alive when he catches me. [ which he does view as an inevitability, sorry to say. your luck's weird and not all that fortunate nate. ] That's about all I can say.

[ he lets go of nate's wrists, shifts off his hips to sit in the snow beside him instead, let him consider the words. and this time? he's not saying something stupid to jeopardize himself again. ]

[Once Harry has him pinned, Nate's jerking back and forth to give himself some distance and get away so he can hit him again but it's no use- laying there prone, he glares up at the other, brows furrowed because he knows he's showing his true colors again but in the words of Sully, goddamn why the hell does any of this have to happen? Again he's at a loss of words when he's spoken to because he's trying to understand Harry's side of things, really. The betrayal stings but compared to being skinned alive by someone like Lazarevic, he can get where he's coming from. Almost.]

Why do you think I told you not to go? [Expression wry, there's no smile when Harry gets off of him and sits nearby but he looks over, watching for any hint that could warn him. With his luck though, of course there isn't going to be one. So he stays there on the ground, doesn't even prop himself up onto his elbows as he thinks on it.] You really didn't shoot me wherever.. you're from, huh?

[Another world? Hell if he would believe something like that without seeing it, but.. he really would rather not see it. Being shot by Harry was hard enough-- being shot by Chloe? He doubts that makes it any less worse. As strange and stupid as it sounds, he's this close to believing him.] --What was the last thing you told me, that time we got locked up in Spain?

[ it's weird, thinking about it that way. 'another world'. harry's heard of the theory of parallel universes, sure, but it's almost insane to think that that's what's going on here. hell, believing his memories got screwed up and nate and elena are right is easier to accept than that (even if it leaves a terribly bitter taste in his mouth). still, he shakes his head. ]

No.

[ the question, though, gets his attention. his eyes go back to nate and he raises a brow, grinning at the memory of that particular mission. ] Ah, Spain. That was fun. And I believe I told you that you needed to work on your pick-up lines.

[ anita had been as fierce as she was beautiful with a scary aim to boot. nate knows how to pick them and then make them mad at him, especially when they're working for the robbery target. ]

[At least that memory sounds about the same. Finally that smile comes back for a moment, peeks out through the uncertainty clouding Nate's mind and finally he lifts a hand, reaches overt to prod Flynn in the side.]

It really is you. Just less of a ass, kind of. [He exhales, pushes himself onto his elbows so he can look at the other better. Anita had been a terrifying woman and Nate believed all she needed was some reassuring that no one was going to get hurt. How wrong he was.] What are you gonna do, Flynn?

[ he grins when he sees the smile, however small, swatting playfully at nate's hand when he's prodded. ] And there's the Drake I'm used to. Sort of.

[ at the questions he lets out a loud sigh, lets himself flop back into the snow, the impact sending flakes billowing up in a cloud of white. that's a good question he honestly hadn't considered. what is he going to do? he's not exactly going to be easily trusted around here, and as long as lazaveric is alive he's going to be constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for the monster to come down on him. he looks up at nate, shrugs again, leaving an impression in the snow. ] I haven't the faintest. To borrow from you, I hadn't thought that far ahead.

[ he'd been too busy making sure nate was still alive, arguing with elena and trying to figure out what madness was happening here. he still has no idea on the last point, but at least nate seems to be relaxing around him and accepting what he's saying, so that's good. he looks up at the sky again, frowning, brows furrowing as he thinks it over. with the situation as it is, really, what is there for him to do? ]

[Harry goes down and that prompts Nate to sit up, look at him because it's weird if they're both on the same level in that moment, for that situation, somehow. Watching him, he considers things as they are, thinks on that answer then shifts, moves to sit himself on the Brit's stomach because maybe from here he won't get betrayed somehow (if Harry gets second thoughts again). Looking down at him, he takes a breath in.]

But Flynn, you're crap at being adaptable. [It's an attempt at a joke and the wry smile doesn't leave him. Reaching down, he clenches a hand into a fist and lightly this time, he bumps the side of Harry's face.]

... Stay. That was what you were gonna do anyway, right?

[ he lets out a surprised 'oof' when nate shifts to sit on his stomach, raising a brow up at the treasure hunter. ] You're a little heavy for that. Gonna take the air right out of me. Still a cocky bastard though, aren't you?

[ friendly banter, the things he's used to, and he's glad they're returned to that level of things at least. he lets the tap happen, chuckling at it, though he raises his brows at the suggestion. ]

You sure that's what you want? [ because even for all the banter and friendly gestures, he can still see the slight unease nate regards him with, guarded, waiting for a 'just kidding' and a shot to a more lethal place. it's going to be a little uncomfortable if he's constantly waiting for it, not to mention how elena will react when she hears. he's not at the top of anyone's friendly list right now. ]

Make a doughnut crack and I can't guarantee you'll get up without a black eye, Flynn. [He's good on that threat! Nate might be warming up to Harry again but it's gonna be hard as hell to get back to the level of trust he had in the other. Looking down, he makes a face, raises a brow. Pulling his hand back, he settles it at his sides, on top of the other.]

I don't know exactly what I want. [It's never been that simple; if it's not 'let's find this treasure' or 'we'll get along', then things become ten times more difficult. He knows history, hundreds of years of it, enough to keep him in the know for jobs but with people, with his needs past the basics, it's never been that easy. He looks out towards the village, exhales.] Look, you're either with me or you're not. It's that simple, right?

[Me. Not us, not we. He hopes, anyway.] So what do you say?

[ he holds his hands up in surrender at the threat, even if he's still grinning. he can't help it, it's a lasting joke with him, just as much as anything else they throw around. his hands fall back to the snow, listening to nate as he speaks.

he considers it, the proposal, everything, brows furrowed and head tilting as he takes nate in for a quiet moment. that is rather simple, even if it's probably too simple concerning the situation. nothing's ever simple when betrayal comes into play, and whoever thinks so has never been on the receiving end. still he nods, giving a small smile of his own. ] Sounds a hell of a lot better than wandering back out in the blizzard, if nothing else. Suppose I'll stay.

[ so that's that, for better or worse. hopefully better. ]

[He knows it isn't, but he's trying to make it that way - he just wants to know there's two ways to things instead of a stupid inbetween that gets him stabbed in the back. Nate wants to give this a try, even if it means he's putting himself at risk again. If he gets hurt again, it's his own fault for thinking he can place his faith back into a guy like Harry Flynn.

Still, the smile gets him to exhale and he nods back, shifts to stand and get off of Flynn. Bending down, he reaches a hand out to the other to help pull him up. This is either a big mistake or something that could be good again. He knows he looks ridiculous, tussled with snow and grass everywhere, but that doesn't matter.

Somehow, somewhere, he hopes this will be like the good old days. They're going to screw Lazarevic over. Him, Elena, Chloe, and now Harry.]

Good to have you, then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[RP] train-wrecked;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject