AEDOLIS > Margad

Bad Apple Remix [nephero] [M!!!] [TW]

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GoblinFae:
Trigger Warnings for mentions of past potentially graphic abuse and suicide.
He was back.

Joan Archer was a burning ball of anxiety and bullheaded determination. She had just finished a round of sims when checking her com revealed a name that filled her throat with bile and made her shoulders tense in anger. Jonah Cole was back on active duty and in his office. And it was about stars-damned time she and he and a very long discussion. Her foot bounced like a jackhammer as she worked up the courage to do the right thing, to make the move to initiate all the things that needed saying. Joan was no coward. She knew she needed to do this and she wasn't going to let herself be the victim once more.

Cole, she had called him in the public chatroom. She had never even called him by his last name to his face. It was always Jonesy, Jonah, The Jonesman, or her particular favorite, GhostBoss. It had always been him who had addressed her by her surname and never her first. Now though how the tables were turned as she marched up with purposeful strides to his office.

Once at his door, Joan paced up and down the hall waiting for Ellis to be freed from the conversation going on behind closed doors. Even when she came out she did nothing more than bob a greeting of her head to him before storming up to the open door and rapping sharply on it.

"Permission to enter, Pilot Cole?"

Her eyes bored into him as she addressed him in an uncharacteristicall y formal manner with her back straight and hands clasped behind her back. Only once she had been granted the right to enter did she quietly shut the door and move to stand in front one of the "guest" chairs although she did not take a seat. Instead she gripped the back of it with a tight, white-knuckled grip of both hands. "I believe we have a very serious matter to discuss, starting with an explanation on your part," she bite out between clenched teeth that made the muscle of her jaw bulge.

nephero:
   He’d known it was only a matter of time.

   Not even because of what had happened, either— somewhere, deep in his soul, there had always lingered the shivering fear that one day, and one day very soon, everything he’d tried so hard to bury six feet under the dirt would just get dug right up again. In his worst and wildest nightmares, it involved a terribly public appeal, or because his psychological case file had been opened and through some feat of cruelty, it got everywhere. Entirely baseless exercises in paranoia, of course, but still the fear lingered.

   He’d known it would be something. After the debacle in the equipment hangar, after what he’d seen and felt, and what he’d bombarded his subordinates with…

   “Cole,” is what Joan had called him. A mirror-echo of his own inability to call her by her given name, Joan had never used his rank or his surname before without duress involved, and never to his face. To have it used like that, right then, was jarring to say the least. It was enough to set him on edge even more than he already was; something that Ellis, thankfully, remained blissfully immune to.

   The few Borises that had taken up shop in the quiet corners of his desk, however, curled up defensively and huddled in the shadows, sensing danger, foreboding, a sense of impending doom that felt too much like a boot at the back of his neck.

   Jonesy let out a deep breath through his nose, and watched as Amaryllis left and his doom entered, barely containing her own fury as she snapped through all the military etiquette that had been drilled into her skull over Candidacy.

   He’d known this was bound to happen, and yet it didn’t stop the rolling sensation of nausea and terror that wormed its way into his guts, coiling tight with every word the younger Pilot spoke. What ended up breaking the spell, however, was the idea that he had to explain anything to her at all— this was, after all, top secret intel. Sealed away. Locked up and the key thrown into the deepest thermal vents in Travica.

   But she’d seen, hadn’t she? She’d seen him lose his mind. He knew what she was capable of— there was no getting around what she had to already know. Or, at the least, had to have already begun to guess. Somehow, that felt worse— what had she guessed? All the worst case scenarios seemed to pile up, one after the other, each one more nauseating than the last, with the crowning thought of—

   Had she guessed he’d…?

   Swallowing thickly around the sudden, desperate urge to throw up, Jonesy took another breath through his nose and fixed his most pointed glare at Joan Archer from his seated position at his desk.

   “And what matter is that? Last I checked, I didn’t have to do a goddamn thing.”

GoblinFae:
She had eyes only for him as tendrils of discomfiture settled in around him. Joan paid no mind to the spiders about the room, she was more than used to their presence wherever Jonesy was. It made sense that his home and office would both be littered with them. Instead she waited for him to speak, giving him the time to collect his thoughts and maybe, just maybe prove her wrong about her assumptions concerning him.

But, of course, nothing was ever easy with Jonah Cole. She grit her teeth at his answer. Unwilling to back down now though, Joan gripped the chair back tighter and tilted her head. "No?" she asked far more pleasantly and gently than she actually felt, her eyebrows raising in surprise. "Because you see sir, where I stand I am fully within my rights to be the responsible party here and march my ass down to Inquisition to report you immediately. The only reason I haven't already is because out of respect for you, I wanted to give you the chance to explain on the off-chance that I am completely mistake about the things I heard.

"Unless that is you truly feel that thinking of me as 'Moaning Joan' is an acceptable form of address to a subordinate who you continuously refuse to even address by first name to her fucking face! Do not play fucking games with me here. I have given you way more space than you're probably due but I am not and I mean NOT about to let you sit there all superior-like and high and mighty just because outrank me and I am required to show you respect," she spat out, her mouth barely moving the more angry she got.

Joan was practically shaking with her fury and her already pale skin was practically ashen. Her heart pounded within her chest but inside she was resolved to stay as calm as she could. She would not let him beat her. She would not let him win. She had faced bigger monsters than him before and won. She would go to war with him if she had to defeat him too. It didn't matter to her right then if this meant the end of her career. As long as the truth came out, that was all that mattered, because if she was right and he was a vile and filthy creature, then she would commit career suicide just to take him down with her.

nephero:
   At first, Jonesy wasn’t sure exactly how pissed he should be. Should he be mildly annoyed? Mildly annoyed seemed a bit underseasoned, honestly. Like if you made instant noodles and never added the flavor packet. Which, on a particularly bad day— set of days— Jonesy absolutely had done. He didn’t even remember what it had tasted like, unless nothing and mush was what it had tasted like. Mostly he just remembered how he felt: sluggish and annoyed that three minutes in the microwave took that long.

   Angry also seemed to be not quite up to the task. Sure, it fit well enough when Archer, Joan, threw his dismissal right out the window and instead of leaving, focused on seeing how great her finger strength was at. Angry might have covered whatever damage she seemed intent upon doing to the upholstery, but it didn’t even come close to making a dent in the large bill that was the next words that came out of the Cardinal’s mouth.

   For a moment, all sound just… ceased to be. Even Archer’s mouth moved without any actual words escaping. Jonesy knew she was talking though. She was talking and talking, and even though Jonesy could hear none of it, it felt like she was screaming right inside of his head. He took in a deep, sharp breath.

   Moaning Joan.

   Jonesy took another breath, wanting desperately to just shout at her to shut up, to get the hell out of his office, to get the fuck out of his sight and to never come back again. But no matter how many breaths he took, no matter how many times he tried to fill his lungs, it never took. The more he tried, the less air he got, his pulse picking up into a rapid drumroll the longer he spent clutching onto his desk, white knuckled and nails dug into the wood.

   Moaning Joan.

   “You…” he hissed between gritted teeth with air he didn’t have. He looked from where her fingers dug into the chair, and up to her face, as ashen and grey and lifeless as the rest of the office space between them.

   Jonesy had never been… fair… to Joan Archer. He knew that. He knew he treated her differently, but no matter what he tried, every time he heard her name he—

   He hated her. He hated her, just like he hated her now, and oh, did he hate her now. His breathing picked up, but this time he had something to anchor him to the moment rather than drifting through an ocean just barely underwater. He focused, and he pushed, and he broke the surface with a deep, snarling growl.

   “Don’t you ever—”

   So, it seemed like ‘absolute seething, blistering rage’ was the appropriate level of angry. Everything melted away, even the walls, until all that was left was him, Archer, and a hazy white tunnel.

   “Don’t you ever fucking call me that, you fucking piece of shit!”

GoblinFae:
Her head recoiled back and to the side some as if struck with a physical blow. Joan could only stand there and breathe shakily as she was assaulted not only with his verbal and emotional rage but also her own mind-boggling confusion. She did not release her grip on the chair for an instant as she stared down at him quizzically from the corner of her eye.

Joan slowly lowered her head then, her brows knit together fiercely as her eyes darted side to side in sightless thought. Hadn't he been the one to think it about her first? How did he get off saying she called him that? She hadn't! She wouldn't! No matter how much she disliked his treatment of her or how much he seemed to absolutely despise her, she never would have resorted to something so low. So where did he get off making her out to be the monster here?

The young Pilot tore through the emotions he bombarded her with, analysing and searching for something, anything that would justify a further course of action for her. The guilt and fear she had felt during lockdown were not present here. It was all just layers upon layers upon layers of unadulterated loathing and rage. It burned and ached down to her bones, making her body feel burdened and weighted down as it settled in around her person. Her own anger and nerves could not even begin to compare to this although his did well to fuel hers to a new level.

Maybe that was why she did not act nearly as rationally as she would have intended. Perhaps his loss of control and thereby her own is what allowed her to harness that fury into such razor-sharp focus and to unleash floodgates of bitterness that could very much cost her everything she had to call her own. Joan snapped to attention, her head whipping back to focus on him and stare him right back down.

"Fuck you!" She shouted emphatically while lifting and slamming the chair down harshly. In her head it was his head against a wall instead of the chair against the floor she was slamming about though.

"You don't get to play the fucking victim here, Cole! I didn't call you that. You thought it about me! I heard you! Did you fucking forget I'm clairaudient you vile piece of shit? I heard you! I felt you!" Her voice cracked as angry tears flood her eyes but Joan wasn't letting that stop her now. If anything it only made her more furious. How dare he bring her to tears the disgusting pervert that he was.

"I have done nothing to you and yet you have always treated me like shit. Maybe it would be fine if you treated the entire rest of the squad with the same fucking contempt but no, I'm just the dumbshit who got the short fucking straw in life, aren't I? Yeah, let's all have a laugh at Joan because surely she hasn't had enough shit happen to her already! HA HA HA! Fuck you!

"Fuck you for treating me like crap," she shouted pointing her finger at him in sharp jabbing motions that could have poked an eye out had she been closer. "Fuck you for trying to gaslight me now and make me think I'm the problem. And fucking fuck YOU for thinking that for just one second I would let you get away with thinking of me in such a vile and disgusting sexual manner and get away with it. You want to jack off to thoughts of me, be my fucking guest I don't give shit! But get off your star-damned high horse Pilot I'm-going-to-be-the-squad-sex-police when you're the worst one of us all!"

She was gasping for air by the time she had finished but her mind was already racing onto the next thing. Joan only had enough time to gulp down a few puffs of air before continuing her horrified tirade. "Is that why we don't have any women on this squad besides me and crazy? Does the Commander know you're such a fucked up predator that he's covered everything up and made it so you can't get your filthy paws all over the fresh meat? I mean for fuck's sake I thought you were gay! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

The pressure in her chest was unbearable now as her lungs screeched for the air she had forgotten to take. Both hands clasped the chair once more as she half hunched over it like an angry bird guarding its newly acquired prey. Not once did her eyes stop glaring heated daggers that bore into Jonah with all her might. Hot tears broke the surface finally splashing down her cheeks and soaking into the fabric of the chair. It took everything Joan possessed in sheer willpower and pride to not breakdown into the fit of hysteria she could feel rising up from her core. That could come later in the privacy of her own room. But Jonah Cole who got the chance to see her crack and cry would never, ever see her shatter. She would not give him the satisfaction.

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