trans_9 | For the Sake of Revenge

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For the Sake of Revenge

Yeah, it had been months since Steve had renounced his feelings for Claire, and he even had a girlfriend now. But something still ate at his nerves whenever it came to talking privately with her. Especially when she was the one who asked him to come talk to her. And especially when she wanted to meet somewhere strange, like hydroponics.

Steve had never actually been to hydroponics, so he was struck in awe as he stepped into the massive terrarium for the first time. Nice to know there was such a green place that wasn't virtual. Though there were probably man-eating alien plants or something creepy here.

At least his wandering train of thought was doing a good job of distracting him from worrying about what Claire wanted.

Well, until he saw her, anyway.

"Hey Claire," he said with an awkward little wave. "This is kind of off the beaten path..."

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Claire knew exactly why they'd bothered picking Steve up, but that was a truth she'd firmly sworn never to divulge to him, so she didn't answer, looking down at Boon and scruffling the puppy behind his ears, before Steve mentioned Lex, and she looked back up, giving him an oh, please look.

"Don't think for a second that asshole is resting easy. Leon's hands may be tied because he has to uphold the laws of this ship, but I'm not suffering the same moral complications. At the very least he's got a bruised jaw, right now. And at the most, if he does anything like this again, I'm throwing him out an airlock." Despite how that would typically sound like a joke, there is absolutely no humor in Claire's voice.

"I hate to say it, but if I end up getting killed next time he decides to play scientist, throwing him out an airlock really won't be all that satisfying for me," Steve pointed out, though the mention of a bruised jaw seemed to cheer him up slightly, evening out his voice at the very least.

He let out a heavy sigh and his brow furrowed. "Claire, you have to tell me who it was," he insisted. "You can't just not tell me. I have the right to know!"

"I know," she replied, biting her lip. "I need you to promise me you'll just steer clear of him though, okay? And don't do any tests anyone asks you to do unless it's Luis or Scarlet specifically."

Steve sighed again. "Obviously. You know, I didn't do what GLaDOS told me to because I agreed to..."

Then he looked a bit torn before he answered her. "I won't go near him, okay?"

Claire sighed, nodding her head. "Okay." She wasn't sure how happy he'd be about it once she told him, but she got him to say it, at least. Hopefully he wouldn't break a promise to her.

"It was Lex Luthor."

"Lex Luthor? That bald asshole?"

It was someone he'd suspected. Well, clearly, it had to be someone who knew there was something wrong with Steve and that was a very small list. But it was still a shock.

Because Steve knew who Lex Luthor was, and that was about it. He was the one Steve had spoken to literally once, in the middle of the whole Nightmare fiasco. The one who'd seen Steve bleeding fire while he was helping rescue the group, half of whom were complete strangers to him, from armed guards. The pompous jerk who spent all his time holed up in a fancy crew lounge and walking around like he owned the place.

Well, there went the calm.

"That stupid fucking sadistic psycho!" Steve snapped. "I don't even know that creep! I'm gonna kill him!"

"No, you're going to stay away from him," Claire replied firmly, keeping her gaze on Steve while he ranted. She wasn't going to let him run off on a tangent, as much as she felt Lex deserved it, she didn't want anything worse happening to Steve.

"He knew something was wrong with me! He saw my blood, because we were in the middle of the Nightmare King bullshit and I was using it to help save his stupid life!" He took a few deep breaths in an attempt to keep his temper, but it was apparent that the rant was far from over. "The hell's wrong with him!? What did I ever do to him? Who the fuck does shit like that?"

"And how in the hell has he gotten away with it? I thought this ship was supposed to stop us from hurting each other! Oh, unless it's Steve 'Science Project' Burnside and the attacker's some high-ranking bald bastard we have to truuust because he says so!"

"That's not it, Steve." Claire sighed, rubbing the side of her neck, grimacing. This was a horrible, bad idea. This was a horrible, bad idea, and she should have listened to her intelligent boyfriend and kept her mouth shut.

Yeah like that would ever actually happen.

"He... did something, I'm not sure what, but people are looking into it. As soon as we figure out how he got GLaDOS to listen to him, he's toast."

"Yeah, unless he can control Stacy too or something," he muttered. "This is so much bullshit! I'm sick of my whole life revolving around some psychopath's stupid science experiment, and keeping it a secret in case a bunch of other psychopaths hear about it!"

The glare on his face darkened further. "Hell, if Lex Luthor wants T-Veronica so bad, he can have it. I'll go give it to him right now and see how he likes it."

"Steve," Claire's tone was sharp, and punctuated by Boon in her lap letting out a low growl, sensing the stress in the air, once again. She didn't shut him up this time, though.

"What?" he shot back. "He almost killed me! He deserves it! I never did anything to deserve it-- any of it!"

"Do you really want to make someone else suffer the way you have? To lower yourself to his level? To Alexia's level?" She pulled herself to her feet at that, looking a mix between worried and pissed.

"It's probably bad enough I let him shake me, but he's not getting this out of you. It's probably exactly what he wants. You to march down there and try to kill him so he can show the crew exactly how dangerous you are."

Steve's face went blank as soon as Claire pointed out who he was starting to sound like, and he immediately went silent. He was horrified to find a bitter thought floating in his head-- yes, he did want to make Lex suffer. He quickly suppressed it and glanced away from her almost instantly, turning his trademark red and biting his lip hard to distract him from the sinking feeling he was going to start crying.

"Well maybe I am dangerous," he said finally, still too ashamed to look at her. "Maybe it'd be better if I was locked up."

Well at least that deflated him. Still, she couldn't help roll her eyes at that, crossing her arms.

"You deserve a chance to be able to make your own choices and be free on the ship, just like everyone else." Even assholes like Luthor. "Do you really think you'd be better if you were locked up?"

"No," he said quickly. "But it'd make a lot of people feel better if I was." Like your boyfriend went unsaid. "And it's not like I can do anything around here anyway. Just-- sit around and wait for everybody else to cure me, or solve all my problems for me, or experiment on me, or drag me out back and shoot me."

The wind seemed to have gone from his sails, and he was more dejected than angry now, sinking down to sit in the grass and still refusing to look at Claire.

Boon was cautiously approaching Steve, now, a little unsure of this guy who kept bouncing back and forth between sad and angry, but with Claire standing that put her hands beyond his head, and this guy had been nice enough earlier! Plus he looked sad, now, and sad was bad.

Claire sighed again, looking down at Steve, feeling bad for him. She desperately wished there was something she could do to make him feel like he was useful, like he belonged somewhere.

"I'm sure you could come up with something. There are tons of machines around here that need work. Have you checked out Engineering at all?" Yes, Steve. She remembers you liked to play around with motorcycles.

Edited 2010-08-14 07:54 (UTC)

Steve was biting his lip even harder now, trying to shut down the tears threatening to well up. All the worries that had kept popping up since GLaDOS' test that now seemed more realistic to him than ever, especially now that he knew who was responsible for it. What if I'm not supposed to be here? What if I'm a mistake? What if the virus is the only important thing about me? He wanted to give them a voice, but he was sure Claire, like Luke, would think he was being stupid. And if he talked about it, he was going to cry. Screw that.

"Once," he said. "But all those guys are geniuses. Who knows if they'd want some stupid kid messing around..." He did not sound un-hopeful about it, however. "I missed out on everybody having cell phones back in our world for crying out loud."

Boon was sniffing around his hand as he talked, and he lifted it up to numbly pet the puppy's head.

Claire felt bad for Steve, but she couldn't help but laugh a little at the cell phone thing, crouching down next to him.

"Not that big of a deal. I hardly used mine for anything beyond phone calls." She cautiously reached out to rest a hand on Steve's shoulder, squeezing gently. "I know you're a fast learner, though. I'm sure there are others in Engineering who would be happy to have another set of hands."

She'd notice him flinch a little but, but relax after a few seconds-- still quite pointedly avoiding looking at her face. "I guess," he murmured. "Probably wouldn't get myself killed in Engineering."

Then he let out another long sigh. "But that still doesn't change the fact I can't do anything for myself. It's stupid I have to be a burden on everybody else."

"There's always a learning curve," Claire sighed, shifting so she was fully sitting again, pulling one leg up so she could lean against her knee.

"No matter what, until you just get out there and learn and do things, you'll feel like a burden. But if you just push past that and do what you can to learn what you want to, eventually you won't be a burden. You'll be an asset."

Boon was wiggling under Steve's hand, falling over for a belly rub. He seemed a little more enthusiastic about petting him now.

"I guess so," he said again. "It's better than just sitting around, anyway."

He let out another sigh and finally glanced up at Claire. "Are you sure I can't do anything about Lex?"

"Yes," she replied firmly, although the earlier edge to her voice wasn't there. She knew he felt helpless and like taking it out on the person who had victimized him would help him feel like he had a little more control, but, well. It was probably best if he didn't take that step.

"I know it sucks, but we need to just leave it alone, right now. Lex'll get what's coming to him, though. One way or another."

He clearly wasn't happy about that answer, scowling slightly.

After a few seconds, something seemed to dawn on him. "What was that about a bruised jaw, anyway?"

"Oh." Claire smirked a little, reaching out to scratch under Boon's chin when he lolled his head back against the ground.

"After I found out he was the one who had set GLaDOS on you, I hunted him down and punched him in the face." And verbally assaulted him a little bit.

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