If I Have to Lie, Steal, Cheat or Kill [Semi-Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard hasn't gotten a full night of sleep since a little before they landed on Galilee. The events of that particular mission certainly haven't helped. Recently he's taken up to squinting to combat the way his eyes feel as if they're covered in dustbunnies and sand, and his usual skittishness has turned into an unconscious twitch and tremble.

After spending at least a few hours of the night pacing the Warehouse, now otherwise devoid of life except for him and Emergency Rations the Cat, he finally sinks to his anxious instincts and pulls open the hidden closet to reveal the cans and cans of non-perishable food. Then he closes the door again, places back the wall panel. That's for emergencies. That's for starvation.

He checks Albert's room again to see if his business partner has magically appeared back in his bed, but the immaculate, orderly room remains empty. It's not even as if he liked Albert. If pressed, he might even admit to hating him. But Howard doesn't like that someone in his life has vanished without warning. He's had bad experiences with that.

Emergency Rations follows him to the front door. She brushes up against his legs while he puts his shoes on, and for a moment on the floor he pulls her to his chest and breathes into her fur. Then he fills her bowl up with more kibble, taking a handful for himself, and locks her inside the house while he heads to Hydroponics.

He passes the beer tree, passes the carnivorous plants, and finds a quiet little nook with exactly what he's looking for - fruit trees.

The fresh, strange fruits within arm's reach don't last him all that long - partially due to his relatively small stature and their slick, unclimbable bark. But there are some on the ground, if rotten. He's not picky. He gathers them from around the surface roots of the trees and sets them in one sloppy, oozing pile.

He sits with his back against one of the trees, resting his head on a loose knot and swallowing pieces of overripe fruit while barely chewing. It's a temporary comfort. Just because people disappear on Stacy doesn't mean she's about to put them in some death trap. Stacy's always been like this, taking people when it makes sense to her. It's just never been someone close to Howard.

Thinking about how he's the only person from the FAYZ still awake here sends a shiver down his back, but the sweet juice in his mouth does well to remind him that he's not back home, not in the FAYZ, not buying time from death, not going to go hungry again.

[OOC: Due to the tone of this post I'd like to keep this limited to a few threads; hit me up in PM or AIM if you want to tag here. I'll be having a less wangsty open post for Howard up in a few days for those interested in getting CR with him under different circumstances.]

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[theboywhowaits]

"Why?" That was a loaded question, and not one he was sure Howard wanted to know the answer to, to put no fine point on it. He covered Howard's hand loosely with his own, shielding the tiny bit of tangible connection between them.

It was difficult to explain, difficult to make anyone understand how angry it made him to see someone that mattered to him in danger. Difficult to explain an instinct that had been two thousand years in the making that said simply "Shoot first, ask their squad mates after, maybe pray if it was a mistake".

"That's some of it, a little, that we're coworkers. That we belong to the same department. But that's not all of it. It's a bit complicated." More than a bit, but Howard was young, fifteen according to his file. Barely an infant compared to all of the years he'd lived, even if he knew rationally, that most crises didn't care to check your I.D. before tossing you about. "You needed me to. You needed me there, at that moment. Anyone would have done, but I was the person who ended up being there. I don't entirely believe in the power of coincidence anymore. Gone a bit too far past the of suspension of disbelief by now." He paused. "It's all about weight, really. In the end. To me, your life outweighed his. Maybe he's got some people who would take issue with me about that, but I don't care. They weren't there and I was." Which wasn't really answering the question, but he didn't think Howard would buy 'because you're a little boy and I can't stand to see children hurt and you've been hurt more than enough already.' "You came from a bad place, Howard, bad in the way that most people on this ship would have died within a week. Surviving that only to get killed by someone too daft to do his job proper is a waste. I think there is something worth preserving in you, something worth shielding while it takes advantage of the new light to grow."

He laughed, a soft bark that somehow wasn't entirely humorous. "Rome, circa 76 B.C and onward. They didn't call it that, but a bit of math gives me that as a rough date. That's what the history books tell me, anyhow." He gave Howard's hand a squeeze. "I don't, sometimes. Sometimes I think that must be the real set, sometimes I'm sure Leadworth and Amy are the real set. It gets a bit complicated. The other set goes on quiet a bit longer, as well, which makes it cross over rather badly. At one point I woke up, or whatever you call it, and remembered both and that was that. Deal with it or go mad, those are your only real choices."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard listens, silent. Something tells him Rory's holding back, but people believe what they want to be true, so Howard tells himself that Rory's giving him the full truth.

Something worth shielding. Because if he's going to fight so hard to survive, there must be something in there worth protecting. He can understand that logic.

"Jesus. Rome. I kind of...didn't show up for history classes on Rome, gotta say." He has a feeling that trying to understand how, exactly, Rory came to be both contemporaneous and an Ancient Roman will leave him with more questions than answers, and probably with a headache. He'll probably ask for more of the logistics later, maybe. After he's gotten some sleep. "Do you just...say you're both? You're that Rory and this Rory?"

And then, after a second. "Rory's a really weird name for a Roman. No Rorius Caesar or anything?"

Deal or lose it. That's the way it is with everything, right? How do you tell the difference between going mad or dealing? Is gorging until he's sick and staying up at night checking the locks over and over going crazy or just some symptom of coping, like side effects from a medicine?

"How do you do it?"

He finds he doesn't mind the gentle squeeze Rory gives his hand.

[theboywhowaits]

"What I learned in history class did nothing to prepare me for the real thing." He smiled faintly. Gone from an only child to three older brothers and two sisters. A nurse to a Centurion. A nurse to the last Centurion, a guard and warrior and a protector.

"Not many people that knew me as a child in Rome made it past the first twenty years. It's easier, I think. Rather than having people who knew me as both, the only reminders I have are people who knew me as Rory, a nurse. They met me briefly as the other, but that was barely enough time for them to establish I was myself."

He snorted. "Roraincus, Amy called me. It's easier to just call me Rory. And I wasn't even close to Caesar."

That, going mad or dealing, was a very thin, very fragile line that often felt like both and neither and rarely felt good at all.

"You get up in the morning, you tell yourself you need to keep going. It's not easy, I wish I could tell you it was. That all you need is there and once you figure it out it'll just be what it is and you won't have to think about it. There'll be dreams, nightmares, little terrors that will grip you in the middle of the room and there will be nothing to do but wait for them to pass." He took a breathe, giving Howard's hand another squeeze. "I found something to protect, Howard. A lot of somethings. Helps keep me grounded, helps me push past that terror and do what needs done. That helps, having something that needs you to keep going. That needs a man, not a conflicted mess of memories that can barely function after so long alone."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah, reading Lord of the Flies in middle school didn't exactly prep us for the real thing either," he says bitterly. "History class probably what, gave you this picture of a lot of happy people chilling at the bathhouse in pearly white robes?"

Funny, he didn't ever imagine Rory going to school, although he knows he must have. It's something he doesn't think about with adults.

He shifts position on the bed, getting comfortable. He hates binges. He always feels so disgusting afterward; his stomach and throat burn and ache, and he feels tired to the bone. Sick, body and mind. His eyelids flutter for a moment - he needs sleep more than he thought. He's been up, what, at least thirty-six hours?

"Roraincus," Howard repeats, rolling that word around on his tongue. "Nah, I'm gonna call you Rorius Caesar. In secret, though."

He has a feeling Rory hasn't advertised the dual memories aspect of himself to everyone he meets. Which means Howard's in some inner circle, closer than just a stranger or a coworker, being trusted with information. It's a risky thing to do with Howard, not something most people would try given Howard's penchant for self-serving double-crossing and weaseling. But Howard takes the gesture as a show of faith; he takes it seriously. He won't tell anyone unless Rory gives him permission.

He nods. It makes sense. Rory's falling a bit more into place the more he explains, and that comforts Howard. And he appreciates the honesty, that Rory doesn't endorse that delusion of some magic fountain of will that will cure everything and put all the fear away. He wishes that fountain existed, but looking for one that doesn't exist is worse than just accepting it's not there.

Howard has a cat to protect, he guesses. And Zouichi, even though Zou neither needs nor cooperates with any forms of protection, rendering all efforts futile. So he has a cat.

And he's one of those 'somethings' Rory's protecting.

He squeezes Rory's hand back. "Thanks, Rory. I don't...I didn't know how I was going to handle tonight. I thought I was fine, but then Albert was gone, and...thanks. You're going to wake me up if I'm having a nightmare, right? Because those are so not fun."

[theboywhowaits]

"It's never as good, reading about it. We went over the myths, mostly. The stories and the society. Shakespeare, too, though that's a load of rubbish. Most of it was, anyway. That I remember being taught in school, different living it. Words are tame, clean. They fit what you want to say and not much else. Even if they're telling a tale of something horrible, they're still clean. Words are the past. Not the present."

He snorted, amused at Howard's insistence on the name. It wasn't the worst that had ever been pinned to him over the years, a bit odd, but not the worst. "That rather than Scarface?"

He hadn't, the Doctor knew, he thought at least. Amy should know, though he hadn't really explained it to her. Sakura knew a little, mostly because she'd been there. Other than that...well.

It wasn't something he walked around chatting about. It was a risk, but lying to Howard wasn't on his agenda. He did understand, telling Howard the truth would help convince him of that.

"You're welcome. It never hits us when we plan for it to, Howard. Nor when it's convenient, sometimes your brain just goes sideways." He gave his hand another squeeze, soothing him. "Dealing with it is all we can do." He nodded, serious. "I'll wake you. Don't worry about that, Howard."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I hated Shakespeare. He's way too hard to read without enough payoff." And Rory's right about the words. How clean they are, how much they leave out. Howard's wanted to write stuff down about the FAYZ for a while, but no matter how much he could put down he'd always leave something out, always not quite capture it, and that makes the venture pointless.

"Who says you can't have more than one name? Maybe I'll get a whole list going for you of secret code names. Make you memorize it, in case of emergencies."

In a way, Howard feels guilty. He knows Rory has his own kid to go home to, that Amy is probably wondering where her soldier's gone off to, that Rory's ribs need to be laying still in bed rather than sitting up playing watchdog. But it's been a long, painful week, and it's been so long since he's had someone take care of him like this. Years. It's not selfish to want to be watched over this one night, is it?

"It's been doing that sideways thing a lot lately." He takes a deep breath, like he's about to dive underwater, and closes his eyes. It might be the first night in a little while he doesn't cry himself to sleep. He keeps a hold of Rory's hand even as he drifts off.

[theboywhowaits]

"Bit flowery, I remember liking it the first time through, not so much the second time. Interesting chap, though." That had been an all too brief meeting, to be honest. One of the more interesting ones he'd had, but very brief. He preferred a poet to the archeologists that wanted to pick his brain for all and everything.

"I don't mind, just let me know before you expect me to respond to a new one."

He did, he missed Amy and Molly, and he knew she'd be cross. But Howard needed someone to sit here and watch him sleep. That was the most important thing, he hoped Amy would understand.

"Sooner or later, it'll turn round enough to go right side up." Sweet dreams.

He sat with Howard until the shifts changed again, holding his hand tightly in his own.