| Words Hurt |
| Summary: | Doctor Ekho finds Augustus in the fitness center and they talk about the hangups of a certain Viper pilot. |
| Date: | 07/01/2013 (OOC Date) |
| Related Logs: | Strings at the end of the Universe |
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| Fitness Center - Deck 3 - Battlestar Orion |
| Smelling of sweat and grease, the Fitness Center is a place where individuals can come to work out or just work off stress. The area closest to the entrance is taken up by two very large sparring pads with a pathway down the center, each pad removable to reveal a Pyramid court beneath. The walls beside the pads hold lockers for everything from pugilist sticks to boxing gloves to rubber guns, though deadly weapons are strictly prohibited in here except by authorized personnel such as on-duty Military Police. Standing goalposts for Pyramid are also kept against the wall. Past the pads are a vast number of nautilus machines as well as free weights to lift. At the back of the room are workout bikes, rowing machines, treadmills, and stairclimbers. There is an entrance to the pool at the rear as well as a locker room to the side. |
| 7 January 2005 |
Normally, Augustus would make his presence known easily. Instead, he almost seems small for a moment before he straightens himself up and makes his way over to the heavy bag and starts to lay into it with heavy punches. There's no words tonight. Words frak things up. He should have kept his trap shut. Maybe then everything would be normal. The heavy thumps into the bag and the shuffle of his shoes and his distinctive grunt as he hits the bag and rattles it gives him away though.
Ekho, on the other hand, is hardly ever noticed in the fitness center. Which means she either has great genes or simply never really makes much of a fuss. There's an old story that floats around now and then, that she tries a boxing match once, but got held off by her opponent through the judicious use of a hand on her forehead. A no-contest loss. Nowadays she sticks to more martial pursuits. And so she comes, a duffel across her back, two short stick sticking out over her shoulder. Hard not to miss the DCO, "El-Tee, I think it's surrendered."
Wham! Thwump! Wham! Augie hits the bag a few times harder as he steps back, panting, a heavy sheen of sweat staining the front of his sweats. "Frak that, Doc, I ain't gave up yet, so it ain't allowed to." He slugs the bag again and starts to shift on his footing. "Decided to leave the lab and actually exercise somethin other than yer brains?" he teases. "The waist control panty hose ain't doing it fer ya." His grin is thin and grim. The usual banter is twinged with anger. Not anger. Hurt.
"You are a cheeky beggar, complimenting my brain in the same breath you insult my waistline. I don't know why I like you." She wags a finger as she heads over towards the bag, sliding the bag off of her shoulder, sliding the stick out, though she holds them easily in one hand. "I will have you know that I exercise many things besides my brains." She stops behind the bag, digging in her heels, before she puts her shoulder into it. "And now I know who's been going through my underwear drawer."
"Not since ya got on this ship, ya ain't." Augie says with a smirk as he doesn't stop to watch her work, slamming another heavy-handed blow into the bag. Tonight has not been a night of holding back. "I needed something stretchy to wrap around my gun." he comments as he hits the bag. A few more pounds into the bag to rattle it, and his face grims in determination.
Augie makes sure not to swing at the bag when Ekho peeks. "Me? Ain't nothing wrong with me, Ekho." the big DCO says between punches. But he can't hold that lie long with the doctor. They've known each other too long. "Just decided that I'm the biggest frak up since Hephaestus couldn't close the deal and dropped his load on Athena's thigh and she stayed a virgin." he snorts, and hits the bag again. WHOOMPF.
"There's only been two girls in my life that I said the three big words to, Ekho. Gramma Garrido raised me to be totally cautious with my heart. The first one? She was a pilot off of Examplia. I chased her hard. She ignored me fer the most part and teased me at other times. She got the shit kicked out of her by one of her frak buddies. I went down and kicked his ass three ways to Harvest. And she visited me in the hospital brig to ask me why I did it. When I told her how I felt, ya know what she did?" Another solid hit into the bag, sweat falling from his skin. "…she laughed at me and went back to the frak buddy I totally jacked. Apparently she liked that shit."
"The second gal.. was tonight. It's the end of the universe and I decided to come clean with Ceres. No more dancing around the subject." Another hit into the bag. "It was too soon. I frakked it up, Ekho. And she rabbited. Right out into the hall. Right out of my life, most likely."
If there's one thing Ekho Lin is known for, besides tell random stories, some funnier than others, is she doesn't bullshit, or offer words that done mean anything. "Augustus…will you stop hitting this bag and come over here so I can punch you in the face?" Ekho steps back from the bag, mostly timing it right so the force of Augie's blow doesn't send her sprawling. She gets into position, pointing to the ground in front of her. "And after I punch you in the face, I'm gonna ask you some questions, okay?"
Augie arches a brow, but the words actually make the wrecking machine stop. He looks at Ekho in that odd sort of way that she seems to get him to do. But he doesn't move. If Ekho wants to punch him in the face, she's gonna have to come over to do it. "Like I have any gods damned answers, Ekho. I'm just a dumb ass firefighter."
"You have that same look on your face that Evek used to get when he refused to sit on the potty." But since he doesn't seem to be coming in her direction, the small woman makes her way over to the much larger man. "You've got all the answers you need." And as soon as she gets within striking distance, she hauls off…and kicks the DCO in the shin. Hard. Silly Augie, she's about half your size. She can't even reach your face.
Augie is totally confused, so the kick into his shin is a surprise. He winces in pain and jerks his leg back. "SUMMABITCH." he rumbles, but to his credit, he has no intention to strike back at the woman, instead her next statement catches him further off guard, "What in the frakkin name of Dionysus' hairy scrotum are ya gettin' at, Ekho? I don't need the coy shit tonight."
Ekho offers, as explanation for the frontal assault of Augie's lower leg bone, "I do the best I can with what I've got to work with." But now that she's got him thinking about something other than moping, she steps back, giving him some room. "So you told Ceres you loved her and she jackrabitted? You know what that tells me? That she's the one I ought to be kicking into submission right now. Cause if there's one person who should NOT be shouldering all the blame, it's you, Augustus. There's nothing more difficult in the world than telling someone you love them and meaning it. And if she's got so many issues that hearing it, after all the time you two have spent together, sends her running off like her ass is on fire then maybe you need to start thinking about whether she deserves the time, the effort and the emotion you're putting into her. If you think about it, really think about it, and she doesn't, then get out while you can. Sticking with someone who refuses to give back as much as they're getting is bleeding a vein that's never going to close. But if she does? Then you need to accept that you've bent over enough. Your back's damned near breaking. Now she needs to shoulder some of the load. Love isn't about one side giving everything and getting nothing and the other side taking and taking then pleading they're too scared to give anything back. Both sides have to be all in. It's about damned time you told her to shit or get off the pot."
"Why shouldn't I shoulder the blame, Ekho?" Augustus doesn't raise his voice. "I'm the frakkin bear. The bulldog. I'm blunt, I'm as gentle as a porcupine crossed with a rhinoceres and there ain't no way that anyone would…" he shakes his head. "Frak it. Just.. frak it." he murmurs slowly, intent on eating the blame on this one as his head dips down. "I don't fall easy, but when I do, it's hard, Ekhs. How do ya treat that?"
"You shouldn't because you're not the one rabbiting, Augustus. You're the one with enough balls to put pull his heart out of his chest and put it in her hands. Do you have any idea how much courage it takes? Of course you don't. All you can see is how you 'messed up'. Except you didn't. You looked into the face of one of the most terrifying moments in a person's life and you didn't back down. She did. She wasn't 'ready'…but you know what? Seems to me that if she can't face her own fears head on and look at you with as much courage as you look at her, she's never going to be ready. And that is NOT YOUR PROBLEM. That is NOT your burden to bear. No matter how hard you can hit or how much punishment you can take." Ekho comes back in closer, reaching out to touch Augie's hand, "You love, for as long as you can, as hard as you can. And when it's over, you let it go. Contrary to popular belief, adversity and pain do not actually make us that much stronger. Look at me. I pushed out two of the biggest frakkin' babies you ever did see. And you could still break me like a twig."
"If you give me that if you love somethin set it free crap, I swear to gods I will use you like a javelin…" Augustus warns with a smirk, but he seems to allow the idea to settle in the pit of his stomach. "I had a dream that we had two babies, Ekho. Ceres and I. It was a frakked up dream. Maybe the two came from talkin to ya. I don't know. It's just.. so frakked up." He confused for one of the few times of his life.
"I'm not saying set it free, Augustus. I'm saying that you can't fix problems that aren't in your power to fix. Either she's going to get her headspace right or she isn't. She's got to make that choice for herself. But she's not ever going to get to the point where she needs to choose if you keep letting her use you like a three-legged crutch." That's right, Garrido, Ekho's seen you in the head. "Seems like a good dream to me, Augustus. And yeah, love is a huge pile of shit. And it's not easy. It's hard work every single damned day. And the only way it works, if if the two people in it are sharing the load. You've picked up your half. Now you just need to wait and see what she does with the other half."
"I think this is Aphrodite's way to spite me for talking about her tits and shit all the time," Augie responds with a laugh. It's a bitter, cold laugh, as he starts to turn back to the bag to whack it again if Ekho doesn't stop him. "I fall for the wrong ones. Ceres is carrying the coin of her last lover. She talks about Aios like I wished she talked about me. It was too soon. I let my heart override my head, and I frakked the pooch for it." He smiles an angry, unhappy type of smirk. "I asked her to let it go. He's only been two days. I must be the universe's biggest asshole, right?"
"She holding that coin because he actually meant something to her, or because it's easier to hold on to the dead than it is to take a chance on the living? Seems to me," Ekho offers, as she moves back to plop down on the mat a bit away from where Augie beating up the bag again, "that it's a hell of a lot easier to live with the fantasy of what was or might have been, than to face a future you can't control. "It wasn't too soon. You said it when you needed it to be said. Way I see it, it's better she knows than she doesn't. Maybe she is running, like you said. But she knows there's something to come back to, if she can grow enough of a pair to turn back around."
"She holding that coin because he actually meant something to her, or because it's easier to hold on to the dead than it is to take a chance on the living? Seems to me," Ekho offers, as she moves back to plop down on the mat a bit away from where Augie beating up the bag again, "that it's a hell of a lot easier to live with the fantasy of what was or might have been, than to face a future you can't control. "It wasn't too soon. You said it when you needed it to be said. Way I see it, it's better she knows than she doesn't. Maybe she is running, like you said. But she knows there's something to come back to, if she can grow enough of a pair to turn back around."
"I guess yer right.." Augie is never ever gonna win a battle of wits with the Doctor. He steps back a few steps and drops his arms to the side, panting. "It was an inconvienent truth, and I have to live with it." he admits finally.
"All truths are inconvenient. I've spent the better part of the last few days avoiding my own." And that's just about the closest Ekho's come since all of this went to hades, to admitting anything about what she's going through, "But better a painful truth than a comfortable lie. You'd regret the lie, in the end." She pauses, coming back up to her feet. "Still feeling like beating something up?"
"Ekho, last time I hit something as small as you she came back from the doctor saying she was pregnant. I think I'm used up. Gonna hit the showers, do my duties and hide from the world for a few days." Augie admits finally. "At least until I get an answer. Plenty to keep me busy fer now. Draw up a list for salvage, check on four, see if the Raptor can be salvaged, plan to go back down to the hole…" Excuses, and more excuses.
"Oh good," is Ekho's obviously relieved answer. "Cause I think if you kicked me as hard as I kicked you, you'd send me sailing a good fifty yards. And I did not remember to pack my underwear with built in butt pads." She reaches down to collect her things, "Meet you at the door once you're decent."
It only takes a few minutes for Augie to shower off. He was trained that if you scrub more than twice, you're jacking off. Once done and cleaned off, he's back in his duty uniform and indeed meets Ekho at the door.
Ekho waits patiently, head bobbing as she tends to do, bopping along to the music in her head. She still once Augie walks back to meet her. "Let's go see if we can unbreak some shit, El-Tee." Working is sometimes the best medicine.
"Sounds like a plan. You ever look at a tank and the reactive armor it has?" Augie asks curiously as they walk. "I was wondering if it could be modified to the Raptors that the Marines use for drop ships to help with survivability." he comments as they head out the door to work.