tampered | Log: Complete

Log: Complete

When; Forward dated to the memory theater curse!
Rating; R? Griffin swears a lot, and there's knock-down, drag-out fighting.
Characters; David Rice

jumpscar, Griffin O'Conner

makesacrifices
Summary; The memory curse reveals that David left Roland alive and well and Griffin is totally pissed. Ahem.
Log;

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Griffin was seeing red. He'd had his reservations about watching David's memories (as he expected they might just be some sob story about his shitty childhood or something) but it turns out - they definitely weren't.

Roland was a fucking army in himself. Griffin had followed him for 10 years, 10 long as hell years of his life, and every time he managed to corner the asshole he ended up being the one escaping by the skin of his teeth. The guy couldn't just fight, he was also efficient and meticulous. He didn't make mistakes. He didn't even almost make mistakes, except by banking on the fact that David couldn't jump a building (not that Griffin could fault him for that assumption.)

Griffin would have given a freaking arm right off his body to get the same chance that David had. The chance that David had and pissed away. Why? To prove some bullshit point?

Fuck, he-- he even would have taken the chance he'd made for himself by trapping Roland back at David's bimbo's house, but the asshole didn't even give him that. Stuck him in Chechnya instead.

Griffin ditched his device (chucked it, actually) and only resisted the urge to bring along his trusty hunting knife because he figured it would be much more satisfying to strangle David with his bare hands. He should have known that when the bastard said he'd "taken care of Roland" that he really meant "left him well and alive probably with a working cell phone and a map back out."

Pissed him off. Especially after he actually did try to get David to keep his head down and lay low. Knew he wasn't cut out for doing what he needed to do to keep from getting killed fast as a Jumper. Knew for sure he wasn't since he was pinned to the ceiling of the lair and asking "why me" instead of just being angry.

Griffin had enough anger for the both of them. He jumped straight into David's apartment, betting he'd be hiding there after his little act of charity became public. He jumped near a wall (didn't want his back exposed when he was obviously there to start a fight) and glared wildly about the room. "Where are you, you piece of shit?"

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Griffin had been saving the jump spot in David's place for a rainy day, or for when the guy got insufferably smug about ... something or another. Just to prove that he had a long way to go if he wanted to outdo Griffin (he'd been at this a long time, after all.) He couldn't just sit around and let this go, though. He wasn't the kind of guy to sit around and do that for anything, especially not when he knew where and how to get back.

When he heard the glass crash to the floor in another room, he didn't hesitate in running over to the kitchen. Reached out for the jump scar over a puddle of juice before it could close and came out of it onto the roof. Subtle.

Part of him (granted, it was a very, very small part, but a part nonetheless) was glad that David hadn't killed Roland. He'd been hunting the man for so damn long he didn't really know how to handle the idea of someone getting to him first. Especially not a rookie, who barely seemed to know his ass from his jump scar.

Then again, he was still going to strangle David for throwing away the chance.

"You said you took care of him," he accused hotly, fist clenching at his side (a telltale sign that he was planning on decking David in the face in another moment.) The wind made him shout a little, rushing by like it did - they were really damn high up. "That sure as hell wasn't 'taking care of him.'"

David remained still, just watching Griffin for a while. They'd fought before, and it'd been a fight unlike any other he'd ever seen or experienced. Who else would be able to take a single fight around the entire world? He'd come out on top that time, but even he knew why. He'd been lucky. Griffin had let his guard down; preoccupied with what he had to do next, and the explosions surrounding him. This time was completely different.

"I did exactly what I said I had. I took care of him." His own voice was raised in response, trying to get his point across. To him, it made perfect sense. He'd shown Roland that he wasn't the same as the other Jumpers out there. Where they would've killed him, David had given him a chance to survive. He wasn't a killer. He was just a guy trying to get along with his life. "I'm nothing like you, and I never will be."

He was fighting the urge to Jump out of there again. He knew that, if a fight began, it wasn't going to end well. For them, or for the city in general. At the same time, he knew that even if he ran, it wouldn't help for long. There were only so many places in the City, and Griffin had been there longer than him. He needed to find a way to end it before it even began. How though...

"Griffin, this doesn't need to happen." He didn't see a reason to explain what 'this' meant. "What good will it do?"

"Make me feel better," he snapped sarcastically.

He thought he could really do without the uppity moral sentiments just kinda oozing off David, so he jumped the distance between them and punched. He never asked to get shoved into the life he lead (though he accepted it a lot more enthusiastically than anyone sane should), and David could go fuck himself if he was too good to be 'anything like him.' What Griffin was was alive, and he'd never spent a day not fighting for it.

Living in a hot, dark cave in the middle of some godforsaken stretch of desert; eating, sleeping, breathing around plans to hunt and kill Paladins (in the end, fellow human beings) like animals - Griffin knew had no one else to blame for the existence he eked out for himself, but it was either that or death, so he took it and ran with it. He had abandoned the notion that living any other way wasn't just a lazy and stupid path towards a harsh end long ago. Saw men like David and didn't see how much he had suffered in life (plenty), but rather how much he wasn't suffering - how much he hadn't sacrificed - it made him bitter.

Made him unable to listen to the voice of reason. He kinda wanted to push the other Jumper off the side of the building though it wouldn't do much good, just for the satisfaction of knowing he tried; bastard threw away the chance to kill Roland for chrissake, and even sabotaged Griffin when he'd tried. "Not much, but I'll take what I can get."

Edited 2008-08-06 21:29 (UTC)

Had David been given any kind of clue as to why Roland seemed to be the single Paladin that Griffin was so focused on- he refused to class his mother in the same stream of thought -then perhaps he would've empathised with him a little. Perhaps he would have even been willing to go through with the act. ... No, he knew that no matter how many people Roland had and would kill, David wouldn't be able to kill him. He wasn't like that. This was the same man that'd almost killed his father. The same man that'd dragged Millie in to the mess. It was the man that'd broken in to his own house and tried to kill him. And despite all that, he'd Jumped the man straight in to the cave and left him alive.

"And then wha-" The punch connected with ease, despite David's awareness to the fact it would be coming. Maybe not right then, but soon enough. He should've been prepared. But like any other time he'd been around the other Jumper, he'd been caught short yet again. Stumbling backwards, a hand shot to his face, rubbing at the blood that began to drip from his nose. Sniffing, his eyes narrowed. Griffin wasn't listening to sense. But then again, had he ever?

"You're wasting both of our time, Griffin. I don't want to fight you." He Jumped a short space backwards. "It's already over. He lost. Fighting me isn't going to change the fact he's still alive."

[ooc: So, my AIM went lame while I was in the shower. u__u I've bugged the mods in the Q&A thread about it.]

"Shut up, Ghandi," he fairly snarled. David had been a-okay with nearly electrocuting him to death, as far as Griffin was concerned, so this? Was just some obnoxious stall tactic.

Roland was the Boss Fight, the big obstacle. Roland had taken so many chunks out of him over the years that it was a wonder Griffin didn't have to duct-tape himself shut every morning just to avoid spilling out. No matter how good at fighting Griffin had become - years of trial and error while David had been learning how to rob banks and woo cheap floozies in foreign lands - he had never been a match for that Paladin. Even with a flamethrower, and a bus, and so much stolen cutlery.

The best he'd ever been able to do was outrun him, or outfollow him around. It just killed him to know that David had been able to pull off everything in one week of bumbling around like a chicken with its head cut off that he hadn't been able to do in 10 years of careful planning.

And then to have him just brush it off like that? What's done is done? Griffin was having none of that.

He took a few steps, then ran. If David Jumped, he'd follow through the scar- if he didn't, then Griffin would be Jumping him right into the cliff below the lighthouse as soon as he got close enough to grab him around the middle. With any luck he'd get knocked upside the head and Griffin could just hold him under until he drowned.

[ooc: D: Weeeird... but okay! ♥ I hope it works.]

He had no idea how he was going to stop the other Jumper, this time. He could try to trap him, but where? He could go somewhere that Griffin hadn't been, but he'd already thought he was there when he'd been in his apartment. Besides, he knew it'd be pointless right then. As long as Griffin was close enough to get through his Jumpscar, there wasn't a way out of it yet.

"Dammit, Griffin. Just stop and listen to me. This is pointless." He was still yelling, despite the lull in background noise. It was getting annoying, having to try and explain himself. Griffin always seemed quick to jump to the offensive, and it'd always be at the expense of someone else. Be they enemy or...associates. "You'd be reacting the exact same way if he was dead right now." He was sure of it.

David was better prepared this time. The moment Griffin was on the move, David made one of his own, Jumping straight ahead to meet him halfway. He Jumped again, trying to grab ahold of the other Jumper as he made the leap, through to the shore of the beach. A completely desolate area.

[ooc: It's still not working. T__T Going to re-install. Again.]

That was the problem with fighting another Jumper. There was just no ending it, as long as one half was persistent enough.

Griffin thought it was a pity that there was no safe for him to stand on so he could kick David properly in the mouth when he got too wordy. Had been pretty damn satisfying last time, after all, and he was really talking up a storm this time. Something about it being unnecessary? Griffin wasn't really paying attention.

He pushed David off of him when the edges of his vision stopped swirling from the Jump (it only took a split second), digging one of his feet into the sand and barely stopping himself from losing balance in the soft terrain before aiming a punch at the Jumper's gut. Right where it'd hurt.

He resolutely didn't stop to think about the fact that for all his blustering he wasn't using fatal force, because while he really did want to kill David... he didn't really. Just wanted to smash him up real damn good.

Or something.

"No, seriously," he said, "shut up."

He'd hoped that the new terrain would've caught the other Jumper off guard. But no such luck. He honestly shouldn't have been surprised, given the location of his 'lair' back in their world. That brief moment that Griffin took to balance himself however was all he'd needed to get himself in to some semblence of a fighting stance. The fact his full extent of fighting skills came from being on the recieving end nearly all of the time.

David doubled forward in an attempt to soften the blow as it came. It managed to throw it a little off course, but that had been it. It still connected. Again. A cough, a wheeze, and a Jump as he opened the gap between them, taking the chance to get his breath back. If Griffin wasn't going to see sense, he was left with no other option himself.

"Fine." And that was his last word as he raised his own fist in a punch, Jumping straight back toward Griffin, his momentum being used to help himself.

If the fact that David actually knew what to do to make a hit hurt less wasn't an indication of what he'd been trying to say in Tokyo about his life before Jumping, nothing was. Griffin's eyes narrowed when David Jumped away and then back again, shrugging the information off and Jumping himself.

Knew David was going fast enough now that he'd have to tumble right through the newly made jump scar.

He Jumped them in midair over the city square, about 50 feet up, and tried his best to dodge the punch that was still coming. It glanced off his shoulder, though any momentum David had been building was lost, and his outstretched arm only served as somewhere for Griffin to grab now.

Which Griffin did, trying to twist them around so David was directly below him facing the incredibly fast-approaching ground.

Edited 2008-08-07 18:56 (UTC)

Facing the possibility of landing face first on the concrete below, David took a quick breath, before making a Jump of his own. Possibly not the best of places to land, but the lake seemed the safest from that height. Tentacles in the distance retreated under the surface as water splashed around them.

He kicked, he squirmed, he even tried to buck his way free from his captor. All the while he was struggling as he attempted to stay on the surface. He needed to go somewhere else.

The next moment he was on the ground alongside the expanse of water, coughing up what felt like half of the contents of the lake, as he tried to spot the other Jumper again. "Griffin!" Cough. Hack. "He's the one you want to fight."

"Y'think?" He didn't quite get where David wasn't understanding that Griffin's temper was generous enough to allow him to hold a grudge against more than one person at once, but hey. The guy was slow.

He coughed once, hard, having wheezed out his initial response before scrambling to his feet from where he'd landed somewhere behind David.

"N'I would have, thanks, if you hadn't gotten in the fucking way!" His breath was labored, having expected (at least on some level) the water but still choking some down in the struggle, and he aimed a kick at David while he was down. It went without even mentioning that David fucked him over in terms of leading an army of Paladins right into his living room, too - that was a shouting match he'd save for later.

He was stumbling round to face Griffin the moment he made a sound. Wiping the mix of water and blood from his face, he blinked blearily over at him.

"I couldn't let you kill her." Millie had been an innocent party in the entire thing. If David hadn't returned to Ann Arbor, then maybe she would've been free from the entire mess. Maybe she'd still be that barmaid with only faint memories of a boy once known as Davy. She would've been safe from the whole thing. But no, he'd gone back there. He'd seen his father and her. They could've been safe without him there.

Still on all fours, it was yet another blow that landed easily. His arm wrapped round his abdomen in protection as he tried to scramble to his feet, still trying to suck in air.

There was another short Jump, this one directly toward Griffin again as a tackle. He needed to end this, quickly.

"She should've been so lucky," he breathed angrily, "now Roland'll go after her family, too."

Didn't know so much why he was sharing this - usually he'd just gloss over necessary information on account of the fact that he felt he didn't owe anybody any explanations - but he wanted David to wake up (they were going to be stuck here together, after all.) He'd never survive with the attitude he had now, and he was going to end up dragging Griffin down with him at some point. Jumpers didn't just live their lives; they couldn't. They were Jumpers.

Distracted with talking (he really had to work on his habit of doing that in the middle of a fight), Griffin got a face full of more David than he was entirely comfortable with and Jumped surprised, back thumping rather loudly into the sands of the desert room. He bit out an "oof!" and wheezed for a second, robbed of the ability to breathe. Tried to roll onto his side to knock David off so he could get back up.

At his words, David froze, his eyes widening in surprise. On some level, he knew it wasn't going to be as easy as he'd hoped. Jumping both he and Millie around the world each time that the Paladins got too close couldn't last forever. But if they were going to use her family against them, that time would shorten even further. But he couldn't take her family with them. So what was he meant to do?

The sudden arrival of a sandy terrain pulled him from his thoughts briefly. Though it wasn't quick enough as David took a spill to the ground.

"They don't know where she is." He was reaching out for some kind of lifeline. "Even if they went after her mom, she doesn't know where Millie is right now. It wouldn't do them any good." Just like it hadn't been any use Roland approaching his own father on their hunt for him. But that had still left the man in a hospital bed, soon after.

"I have to get back." It sounded almost panicked as he tried to Jump again. The same journey he'd tried on countless occasions already. He needed to get back to Ann Arbor. All that happened though was that he kept Jumping to the same spot he was crouched in.

"Right, because m'sure your girlfriend knows as much about keepin' her head low's you do." He gave her a grand total of two days before she did something idiotic like use a credit card or a passport to jump on a plane back home. Hell, even if she just called, they'd be on it like white on rice ~~pun not intended~~. "N'even if she turns out to not be a complete git like yourself, think that'll stop him? Any of them? M'sure she'll be totally comfortable with having her mum executed on account of you."

Paladins had sat on Sam and Consuelo's place for a week before they were finally killed. Probably starving them, torturing them, trying to get them to spill where he was, or waiting for him to call. He'd been careful, too - made sure it was information they didn't even know. For their own safety.

Fat load of good it'd done them.

All that, and he was just some stupid kid who'd never done anything. David was on their radar for robbing banks. He'd probably taken Vatican money somewhere along the line by accident, with his luck. Why did he still think he was exempt from the war? On account of not liking it? Idiot--

Griffin punched him straight in the face while he was distracting himself with trying uselessly to Jump back home.

"None of them are going to get hurt because of this!" It was said for his own benefit, nothing more. He knew that, no matter what he may say against him, Griffin was right. They'd been drawn in to it the moment that David had gone back to see her. If he'd just carried on moving, she would've been safe now.

On the same token though, she now knew everything. And despite that, she hadn't turned her back on him. Not since the last fight with Roland. There wasn't anything he could do now, even if he'd been back in their world at this very moment.

Another hit, and there was the taste of fresh blood. Seething by now, David dived forward again, his fists punching wildly. "I could've fixed this if you'd just let me get on with it. If you hadn't got in the way-" He blamed Griffin, at that point. He was only one of the three he could really get his hands on right then. One of the three that shared the responsibility in his eyes. On was still trapped in their own world. One was the Jumper who stood before him. And the last- Well, he was already beating himself up over the entire situation from the moment he'd arrived.

"Yes. They are." Everyone had to make sacrifices. It went without saying, this time.

"Me? I got in the way? That's rich. What, exactly, did I stop you from doin'? Other than gettin' killed, I mean. Not that m'not wondering why the fuck I bothered, now." Really, if he hadn't followed Roland to that shitty little town where David's girlfriend was staying, ten quid said the bastard would have died right quick in the Colosseum. He really did practically throw himself at Paladin traps. "And you--"

He got caught this time - the heel of his shoe filling with sand during his attempt to step backwards out of the way of David's fists, and it threw him off balance long enough for a hit to land right upside the face. He Jumped away, kicking up sand everywhere in David's field of vision.

That punch had been hard.

It only took him a few seconds of stumbling down the city's main street, holding a hand over his eye to spot what he was looking for - and Jump into the front seat of a fast car. Before the driver even figured out he had company, Griffin dumped it right back into the desert room, hopefully on top of David.

He wouldn't let them- No, he didn't want to let them get hurt. Not any more than they already had been by him dragging Millie away from them in the first place.

"You didn't care about what happened to either of us, so why didn't you just leave us alone? You didn't need to follow me." There was a look of grim satisfaction as Griffin stumbled back. But it was short lived at the Jump that followed. Especially at the arrival of Griffin's...weapon.

He'd never been happier to be a Jumper, at that precise moment. As the car flew toward him at breakneck speeds, David Jumped on instinct. Back home, his place of refuge had been the library. And here, it wasn't any different. For those few brief seconds, David stood amidst the shelves of book, his mind trying to catch up with what just happened.

Seconds later though, he was back in the desert room again, a short distance away from the mess of twisted vehicle that lay smoking in the distance. Some small part of him knew he should've been checking on the driver. But the rest of him, the part that still knew he was in danger, was looking round for the other man again.

Really, he'd been following David so he could do his own thing when he finally managed to flush out the Paladins. Griffin had been disappointed (and a little shocked) to find that only two of them ended up showing, but in retrospect that was probably his mum at work. He still got the information he needed out of the one he didn't kill on the spot, so it wouldn't have been a total bust if David's hadn't been such a dumbass.

He'd dug his own grave, as far as Griffin was concerned; the only problem Griffin had with it was that now he was trying to drag Griffin down into it with him. He'd struggled too damn hard to survive so far, and he didn't need to die on account of some idiot who felt himself entitled to information and consideration and protecting from complete strangers just because they happened to have one thing in common.

Griffin only spared the driver half a glance - face mushed up against the airbag, he was definitely out... but still breathing. There wasn't any blood, so-- well, Griffin didn't really stick around to see anything else. He knew it would be useless to search for David's jump scar amidst the smoke and sand, so he counted himself incredibly lucky when he spotted a black man-shape in the distance of the otherwise flat expanse of desert. Must've pissed the guy off enough to get him to stop running, finally. Good.

Griffin stumbled out of the car and Jumped a scant few feet away David, trying to tackle him from behind.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, David took a step toward the wreckage. A bad move. He was turning by the time Griffin tackled him, though it wasn't fast enough. Falling over in the momentum of the tackle, David aimed another punch at his attacker, wanting to- He wasn't sure anymore. Was it to escape, or was it to hurt him? Maybe it was both.

He made another jump again; this time in to the forest. It wasn't the smartest of ideas. Not by a long shot. Where he found an advantage in being able to grab ahold of that fallen branch, he doubted it would be something reserved for him alone. And where he tried to use it to hit the other Jumper with it, David was sure that this was only going to make things worse.

But despite all that, he'd still gone ahead with it all. By this point, he just wanted to knock the other Jumper out. He'd had enough.

Griffin had the feeling David would be waiting with something on the other side of the jump scar, but he didn't really have much a choice except to go through. If he didn't, he'd have no idea where the guy wandered off to, after all. He wasn't ready to let this go yet, he still had a lot of aggression boiling beneath the surface that he wanted to work off.

Running a hand over his face and taking a deep breath, he braced for whatever and on the other side and ran through.

All he had time to bite out as he saw a branch coming his way was "shi--" before he turned and it cracked him in the shoulder. Giving a pained grunt, he Jumped back 50 feet, grabbing at his arm for a second to make sure it wasn't dislocated or broken. Gritting his teeth through the sudden pain, he Jumped in front of David again. Grabbing onto the other end of the branch he kicked out, aiming for a knee. A hard enough blow, and David would be equally handicapped.

David wasn't going anywhere. Not until he'd gotten Griffin off of his back, somehow. And if that meant putting up with this fight, then he would. They couldn't keep doing this forever, afterall. And besides, a large part of him still wanted this to happen. He wasn't giving up yet.

There was a short-lived smirk as the branch made contact. Short-lived because seconds later, David was on one knee, a loud grunt of pain escaping him as his leg gave out. He wouldn't let go of the branch though, even as he hunched forward. He still had one good leg, once he could muster up the drive to use it again.

He gave a sharp tug on the branch, using it to help pull himself back up again. A limp, and a screwed up expression of pain, before he was jumping back a few feet...and stumbling in the undergrowth.

[ooc: Feel free to start ~~beating the s*it out of him~~ releasing the tension, any time. 8D]

Over the years, Griffin had faced down bigger, badder people than David Rice, with worse injuries than one clobbered shoulder and a quickly blackening eye. (Though that was going to be a bitch and a half to deal with for the next few days.)

David may have been taller, sure~~, damnit~~. Stronger... probably. He definitely wasn't out of shape or anything. But good at fighting?

Not particularly.

Griffin, on the other hand, very much was. He dropped the branch and Jumped behind David again, hooking his left foot around the ankle of his (now) bad leg and yanking it backwards to take it completely out from under the guy. Before he could even go down, Griffin shoved one of his palms hard right into David's kidney, ensuring the fact that he'd be effectively paralyzed with pain so he could take his sweet time kicking the shit out of the other Jumper's ribs.

Like hell the bastard hadn't had this coming since the day they met.

[ooc: 8D Griffin appreciates this v. much. ♥ ~~I-I MEAN~~]

Yet again, instinct took over. But not in the way he would've liked. A series of badly timed Jumps kept him from escaping the other man as they finally ended up back on the roof of the building again.

Curling up, his hands held tightly around his midsection, trying in vain to protect himself. If he had the strength to clean up without drowning himself later, he'd be amazed. (A part of him already knew that this wouldn't go as far as Griffin actually killing him. Even if the chance came up.)

"Sto-" He took a pained lungful of air, feeling the burning sensation of bruised muscles trying to work. "Griffin! Fuck."

[ooc: Whhhy doesn't that come as a surprise? XD;;]

He stops, mid kick, and takes a step back. Doesn't look at David, but rather runs a hand over his face and fidgets there for a moment before Jumping away.

He's got a cigarette halfway out of its pack, jittery from the powerful adrenaline rush that'd been brought on by the white hot rage he'd just worked out all over David's ribcage, before he hesitated. Stared at the cigarette for a few dozen seconds, finally opting to mutter to himself and drop it to the ground.

Jumped back to the rooftop.

Leaned over to grab the lapels of David's jacket, lifting his upper body off the ground a scant few inches and Jumping him to the hospital entrance. "Good fuckin' luck," he muttered, dropping him back down and then leaving.

[ooc: E-er, hope that's alright! I figure he had to get the Vicodin prescription from somewhere...]

It was a look of pure relief that crossed his face as the kicks stopped coming. Staying tightly curled up, he risked opening his eyes, only to watch as Griffin disappeared. He rolled on to his back, slowly, carefully stretching his legs back out. It hurt, but he knew he couldn't just lay there and wait for the pain to go away.

About ready to Jump himself back home, that idea went straight out of the window as Griffin appeared once again. He was starting to try and shuffle away as the other Jumper reached out to grab him. And then he was being Jumped, again.

The hospital?

Frowning at the muttered words, he looked up, blinking up at the now empty space. If Griffin had been so set on beating him up, why had he taken him somewhere to get help? Something told him he wouldn't be getting the answer to that for a long, long time.

[ooc: It's all good! He'd only just steal them otherwise. 8D]

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