Orion has always preferred the night shift. It's quieter at night, both in Slateport and at HQ. The moon blooms high overhead, the brightest of stars piercing the veil of light pollution to paint the canvas of night.

He's been slowly filling out his reports, sat by the window for a view of those stars. He looks up at the sound of footsteps, green eyes settling on the silhouette of Caleb Harcourt. There's something off about him that Orion can't quite place.

"You OK?"

Orion closes his laptop and shifts his chair back from the desk, turning in his seat to properly face his friend. It's as much an invitation as any for the other Ranger to join him.

NOTES

Orion opens his mouth to ask if Caleb wants to talk about it, then closes it again as it becomes clear that Caleb's already trying and failing to find the words. His own social anxiety lends well to an understanding of that phenomenon, even if he's not sure what his friend is struggling with, so he only offers a half-smile as if to say take your time, I'm listening.

That smile fades abruptly as implications sink in.

See, most people who brought up Kanto did so in only a few contexts: family, war, or Rocket.

Orion doesn't stop himself from jumping to conclusions. He takes a running leap into assuming the worst, his open expression shuttering to something guarded and cold.

"What do you mean, 'forced'?"

NOTES

"Yeah, it changes things."

Family ties. That implied that there had been some kind of choice, but Orion can't bring himself to sympathize even if there hadn't been. No amount of torture or coercion could convince him to hurt people, to destroy an entire region as Rocket had done. It was disgusting.

"How do you expect anyone to trust you, when you lie about something like this?" Anger runs through his tone like a current, his voice rising with it. "At least then we'd have known the kind of monster we were working with."

Orion's prosthetic and the reason for its necessity was an open secret. He didn't talk about it but he didn't have to; others talked, it was human nature. Rocket had done this to him.

To think he'd almost considered one a friend.

NOTES

"I've never killed for someone else." He hasn't even killed for himself. Someday, that will change. Some day, he'll wrap his metal fingers around Chu-e Choi's throat. "I've never burned cities and kidnapped children for someone else."

It was unforgiveable.

Where Caleb is soft, almost pleading him to understand, Orion is cold and hard and unyielding.

Hate isn't productive.

"It can be," he growls.

Orion runs on hate. It fuels him where the despair never could. When he'd been despairing the loss of his arm, he'd been miserable. Anger gets him out of bed in the morning. Anger makes him a good Ranger, because sheer spite toward Rocket keeps him going.

The knowledge that Tam Fawley knows of Caleb's past is ice in Orion's veins. He feels betrayed.

"I did." Can he still? His faltering expression hardens anew. "If you never wanted to hurt anyone, you wouldn't have lied to us."

NOTES

The pity in Caleb only angers Orion more. His soft tone and his attempts to understand the roiling fury bubbling up from inside the one-armed ranger do nothing but add fuel to a fire. It may well burn out and take Orion with it, but in the embrace of the flames he doesn't care.

"No, you shouldn't have."

He doesn't - can't - accept the apology.

"Prove it, then."

Part of him hopes Caleb throws himself upon his sword and perishes on the battlefield. Another part of him hopes for anything but. Conflicted feelings twist into knots in his gut, and he pushes himself back from the desk and stalks out of the room without another word.

NOTES