station72 | aaron paul without the swearing

( Can't turn that down. )

[Nyx, proverbially, disappears from the link, off to do his morning laps. He'd find some time later to do the rest of his workout, given the infinitesimal amount of time they have on the ship.

Give it about an hour, and he's sauntering into the kitchen. Sweats, Glaive shirt, the standard workout uniform of the day and age. A quick rap on a nearby table signals his arrival.]

Morning.

[ Sam himself is dressed similarly, sweats and a threadbare t-shirt. There's something that smells almost like coffee brewing, and a plate of some kind of cinnamon bread on the counter next to where Sam's cooking up sausage.

He looks up at the knock, and smiles wide as he recognizes the feel of the man's mental link from the guy he'd been talking to earlier. ]

Morning.

[ He leans one hip against the counter, giving the guy a warm look over and not bothering to hide it. ]

Question answered, man, looks like you can back it up.

[It takes him half a second to register Sam's compliment. Cinnamon? Sausage? Coffee that didn't smell three days burnt?

Talk about being used to a soldier's pay, and then likely even less.

But he does focus on Sam, the man with the vibe of friendliness and charm, rolled into clearly a guy who knows how to not burn down a kitchen. With a smirk, he holds out his arms, shrugs a bit. It takes a certain swagger to rock a haircut between a mohawk and a mullet.]

Told you. Not so bad yourself there.

[He starts rifling through the kitchen, looking for mugs for the both of them.]

I wasn't expecting a space station to have this kind of food, though I don't really know what I expected either.

[ A man after Sam's own heart. It's been a while since he subsisted on mostly MREs, but sometimes having a variety still feels like a luxury. He still remembers a time when he got stuck in the soup aisle because there were just too many damn choices.

It sure as hell takes a swagger to pull that off, but it's a swagger Sam can appreciate. He's always been one to go for confidence and competence, and this guy gives the impression of it even if Sam can't be sure yet if it's deserved.

He tips his head in a pleased acknowledgement of both the returned compliment and the hunt for mugs, as he digs out another plate to dish up the sausage. ]

You and me both, man, I was surprised there's a garden up here. But some of this I brought back from Waypoint, before we left. They pulled the same "get out quick or get left behind" shit on the last mission; I figured I should do it while I could.

I've been hearing a lot about the last mission.

[Namely how fucked over everyone was, how everyone was thrown under the bus save for a few. He's yet to get the whole story on it outside of Annie's continual anger and basis to not trust anyone around here.

Mugs located, he sets them on the counter and slides one over to Sam.]

Heard it didn't go so well.

[ Sam hums a soft thanks, pouring coffee into his mug before offering the pot over. ]

The one on Waypoint, or the one before that? Both of them ended with all of us making a break for it, but at least on Waypoint no one died.

[ He doesn't sound bitter, or even resigned, necessarily - just used to it, maybe. Unsurprised. Sam's still not a hundred percent behind any of these missions, and he'd tried not to be a part of it on Waypoint. He'd tried to just offer support, let everyone else do the planning, except then people he cared about got themselves captured. ]

If you want details, I can try my best to give you a run down of what happened on both, though I don't know everything.

[He'll take the pot, pour himself that coffee and let it stay black as sin. Sometimes you need that punch to the face to wake up in the mornings.]

All I know is that Annie's been upset about it, who knows how long. She's been telling me how they were left behind by the rest.

[The link tells him she's not lying, but what's the rest of the story? Why did it happen like that? How many missions end on such a thin thread?

Nyx sighs. He didn't really plan on making any sort of leadership but it's becoming increasingly obvious the lack of anyone in charge has proven messy and difficult. If they're not an army, they're sure two steps away from being one. At best? They're just groups waging guerilla warfare without any organization.

But then he just chuckles softly, shaking his head.]

I think I've been in the Glaive too long.

[It was him, after all, who barged into the throne room and basically demanded King Regis to let him form his best black ops units to get back Lunafreya.]

[ Annie. It takes a moment, but Sam can place her - the girl who'd cut in on his conversation with Shepard when they were talking hypotheticals, who'd told them so far they were the only two who had their shit together.

Also the one who fought with Katie and Lexa during their planning, but that doesn't mean much. Much as Sam likes and respects them both, most people fight with Katie and Lexa. ]

And here I thought she was part of the planning process. Maybe they were all shouting at each other too much.

[ Which is another reason he'd try to stay out of it except for support - too many people with big personalities and big opinions, not enough trust to go around. Still, he quirks a little smile at that comment. ]

Special ops? [ He's guessing, mostly, too much to try to narrow it down more than that, but you learn to pick up some signs when you hang around them too much. And, you know, when you've been special ops yourself for way too damn long. ]

[He smirks faintly before he takes a sip of his coffee.]

Special ops, black ops, infiltration. You name it, we were it. [He sniffles once, glancing away, searching, thinking, thoughts sorting themselves into place. Nyx doesn't mind sharing, less with Sam who seems to be the same sort of man he is, at the end of the day.] The Kingsglaive was formed after my home was destroyed. "The King's Personal Guard," we were called. A big technicality, given there was already an army in place. So we were sent out there to fight while the army stayed back to defend the city. Whatever we had to do, we'd do it. We learned how to fight like the King's best and only army. We were the only one that could take down the Empire's armies, daemons, MTs. [Nyx takes another thoughtful sip of coffee. He'd nearly broken his back in training, learning how to warp and scale walls and do every single stupid thing only someone of his caliber could pull off.] So yeah. Special ops is a way to put it.

[He's become keenly aware that, in the end, the Glaive was just a pawn to the war. Victims to loss and anger. Expendable units. The people didn't like them, the army even less for taking their actual duties. The list could go on, but he doesn't get much into it after that.]

And I don't ask Annie much unless she shares. I figure it's better for the both of us.

[ Sam leans back against the counter, sipping at his own coffee as he listens. It's one of the things he's best at, might as well keep it up - even with their mental links. He'd rather stay out of people's heads as much as he can, for his sake and theirs. At the moment, his mind is closed off enough that there's only the faint background hum of the symbiote connection, but honestly, he doesn't need it to know what the guy's talking about.

It sounds like the EXO-7 project, like SHIELD. Hell, like what they'd wanted to turn the Avengers into, at least as far as being sent out. ]

Sounds familiar. Only I got out of mine a couple of times, but never managed to stay gone.

[ He's accepted that retirement is probably never really gonna be on the table for him, though, and he grins a little at that last comment. ]

Not a bad philosophy. There's a hell of a lot of sharing around here as it is.

I still was in it. From the looks of it, I'll never leave it.

[As to the second part, he only shrugs.]

I haven't been here long enough to control it. I've been told to keep it down.

[Not an easy task, but at the very least he doesn't think of his own death too often. There's too much to do to linger on that for very long.]

Me neither. There's worse ways to live, though.

[ He makes a soft snort, somewhere between amusement and exasperation. ]

Like it's your fault in the first place, right? The mind sharing thing is... well, it's touchy for a lot of people. Not without good reason, but some people are more jerks about it than others. [ Not that he's naming names. ] I been here long enough to get a pretty decent handle on my shields, you wanna have a look? I've helped people get a feel for them, make it a little easier than trying to wrangle the thing from scratch.

I've been hearing a lot about those. It's not like I've really got anything to hide but if it makes others comfortable, might as well.

[Though there are some places he doesn't want people prowling about. Some places he has to keep buried so grief doesn't overcome him.]

aaron paul without the swearing

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