What a friend you are (Brody)

When the Lieutenant had dismissed Brody to go home, the only thing he could think to do was sit on the floor of his barracks and slowly drink the pain down to a more manageable feeling of numbness. Brody had never really been the sensitive, in-touch-with-his-feelings type, and though that lent itself well to keeping a straight face under duress it was terrible for dealing with stress when the uniform and the poker face came off.

He didn't know where to start. There was guilt, there was confusion, and there was a whole lot of resentment.

A few nights of that numbness had gone by when the anger blindsided him like a knockout punch to the temple, and Brody was tired of sitting around wallowing in self-hatred and wondering where he went wrong. The one thing he wanted was to fight, and when he arrived at one of his old haunts, word had gotten around thoroughly that Brody was a medal-winning Olympian, and everyone wanted to prove their mettle against him.

Brody knew Nolan would never approve of this place; there was very little sport in these kinds of fights, just an outpouring of aggression that more often than not ended in blood and broken bones. It hadn't taken a punch to the kidneys this time; Brody had seen his opponent and had seen red in an instant. The referees had had to physically pull him off the pulverized facade of the guy he'd been fighting when the match was over, and begrudgingly he'd left the ring for the next pair of opponents to face each other.

Brody felt a little better, or at the very least the tiniest bit more worn down after spending his time off prowling his room like a caged animal and enduring the scrutiny of his colleagues after being pulled from the interrogation room. Lieutenant Rochelle was doing her best to run some damage control on her gem of a subordinate, reminding the highers-up that his performance in the Olympics had increased recruitment, his glowing record, etc. etc.

He didn't know whether or not it was going to work, and for tonight he wasn't going to care.

Of course, the goddamned universe seemed intent on not allowing that to happen; Brody nearly gave himself whiplash snapping his head in the direction of his name being called by a voice he recognized.

"Hey, O'Rourke!"

It was almost a knee-jerk reaction, feeling the urge to go over to Matthew and find out what the hell happened after Rochelle had excused him. But in the back of his head, the resentment had clamped on like a vice.

That's the asshole who threw you under the bus and took advantage of you, remember?

Yeah, he very damn well remembered. Brody turned back in the direction he was headed, walking briskly away from Matthew.

"Hey, Brody. Wait!"

Brody clenched his teeth, winding his way through the crowd hoping Matthew would either lose him or get the hint and fuck off; he was quite positive that if Matthew touched him, he was going to punch him.

He was definitely going to punch him.

"Can we talk?"

He didn't falter in his step, but Brody had to square his shoulders to keep himself from stopping. Matthew sounded like a kicked puppy, and the mentor in him was still an unfortunately very powerful presence that screamed at him to turn around, to find out what the Detention Center had done to his friend, his brother.

What, so he can let himself back in like he didn't just use you?

He strode up the stairs, taking them two at a time until he threw open the back door the building housing the fighting ring and was back out in the sticky, summer night air.

Unfortunately, Brody had apparently forgotten that Matthew was taller than him and didn't have much trouble keeping stride with him; on instinct, he swung at the owner of the hand that grabbed his arm, narrowly missing punching Matthew in the face (they had sparred enough at this point, he supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that he saw it coming).

"Stop, for fuck's sake! Brody!"

Brody jerked his arm out of Matt's grasp, lowering his fists but no less pissed off that he was so goddamned persistent.

"You and me need to talk. So behave like a man and don't run away."

He narrowed his eyes, not really at the jab at his behavior so much as wondering what there even was to talk about at this point. As far as Brody was concerned, Matthew had blown off everything he had done to try and help him and seemed to think he could just waltz right back into Brody's peripheral like nothing had ever happened.

"What's to talk about?" He snapped, "You got what you wanted. You're out of the Academy, now I have to run damage control on my reputation after you got me thrown out of the interrogation."

"Right,I really wanted that flogging."

Brody scowled, angry that Matthew almost seemed to be blaming him for the fact that his slap on the wrist had spiraled so far south and the tiniest bit remorseful that it had gotten to that point to start with.

"Which wouldn't have happened if you had stuck to the fucking plan," He shot back, "I told you to be compliant and that I was going to ask you questions, don't get pissy at me when you decided halfway through to plead innocent."

"It's not like I saw you step up for me then? You weren't even around anymore."

He wanted to punch him. Brody really, really wanted to punch him; instead he settled for grabbing the front of Matthew's shirt in both hands (fighting the urge to slam him against the wall, he wasn't that sadistic... at the moment) and hauling him in an inch away from his face.

"Do you have the slightest idea what they would have done to me for stepping in after the Lieutenant threw me out?" He hissed, "You still would have gotten your lashes, I would have had my tongue cut out and been shipped off to the Capitol as an Avox."

Brody shoved Matthew away, thoroughly angry now and about three seconds away from taking another swing if his former recruit didn't stop complaining at him. Who exactly did he think he was? Brody's reputation (now probably marred by that damned interrogation) allowed him to have some sway and powers of persuasion over his superiors, but he wasn't an officer; he wasn't even a high-ranking enlisted man. It didn't matter, anyway; Matthew was out of the Academy, he was never going to be a Peacekeeper, and he couldn't take back the flogging.

If he rolled his eyes any harder at Matthew's surprise that he'd been dropped, Brody was positive he was going to sprain something.

"Yeah, you're out. Now what the hell do you want from me?"

Brody wanted to beat his head against a wall. Not his, Matthew's. Did this guy ever see more than three seconds in front of him?

"Put yourself inmy shoes for a second and see what it feels like to be grilled about something that could easily get you killed. It's hard to stay calm and compliant."

"Try to put yourself in mine for a second," He shot back, "If I wanted to turn you in, don't you think I would have done it by then?"

He was getting riled up again; normally this would be the point that he refused to talk about it anymore, but damn it if Matthew wasn't a persistent bastard chasing him through the crowd and up to the street. As if he actually cared whether or not Brody was kicked entirely out of interrogations;

"I don't know yet if I'm out of the interrogator program. You pissed off Lieutenant Stahl something awful, my Lieutenant is still running damage control."

"I don't know. During the interrogation I had the feeling something changed. All the help and friendshipyou had given me suddenly went out the window and I felt you're treating me like the enemy, a real criminal."

"Did you pay any attention to what I was telling you on the way to the Detention Center?" Brody demanded, not sounding as annoyed as he would have liked, "Where I said I would have to make myself look like your enemy, and that you were going to have to trust me? You heard Stahl, I was taking it easy on you when you started backpedaling on your confession!"

Brody threw up his hands when Matthew admitted that he had, in fact, coached him to expect a not-as-nice side of his mentor; former mentor, he had to remind himself, Matthew had done a bang-up job of getting himself thrown out of the Academy on his ass.

"It's just: The whole being interroagted in that dungeon of a detention center by YOU of all people really messed with my mind. I couldn't tell anymore whether you were protecting me or yourself so I tried to tell the tale from my side."

Brody was in his face in an instant, cutting Matthew off.

"There's your problem. You didn't trust me." He growled, punctuating his point with a jab of his finger into Matthew's chest, "I could have refused the assignment to train you, I didn't have to take you to my parents' place with me or help you get past being afraid of water, and by every measure of my being a Peacekeeper I should have turned you in the moment I knew your girlfriend was knocked up. I didn't. But I trusted you, and you repay me by throwing all of it back in my face."

His glare deepened. If Matthew had the foggiest idea what a real interrogation with Brody was like, he wouldn't even make mention of his humanity; Eiten Ruze was still somewhere in the bowels of the Detention Center, cowering in the corner of his cell at the sight of a white uniform.

"They didn't pick me to be an interrogator because I was nice." He replied, no less angry but quieter now, "If that had been a real interrogation, by the time I was done with you they wouldn't have bothered with the flogging."