@galaeus sent a meme.
β Tell me it's worth it. Tell me you know the risk and I'll be there with you. I'll back you up. Just tell me. β
"No." It's guttural, it's harsh, and sharp, and he refuses to let himself admit the way he regrets it, the way he leans into it, the way he lets that anger bleed into his expression, into his stance, into his tone. "You don't get to tell me what to do, marine." Coldness, in that word, in the way that he avoids using her name, in the way that he uses her assignment as a reminder that she wasn't like him, they were not the same. She was a soldier. He was a Spartan.
"And I don't owe you jack shit. In case you forgot, there's a whole fucking war going on outside the walls of these training grounds, and whether you choose to recognize it or not, I've got more important things to do than play babysitter." It was all falling apart at the edges, everything that he'd spent his entire life training for, fighting for, that he and his people had bled for, died for. Parangosky and Ackerson were intent on nuking him, his team and anyone in their vicinity into oblivion, keeping them tangled up in the bullshit red tape of their bureaucracy, trying to sweep him and his Spartans under the rug like they were the UNSC's dirty little secret. He had to worry about them. About himself. He couldn't be worried about her too. He couldn't let himself be distracted by the guilt that would pile on top of the mountain of it that he already bore on his shoulders if everything that she had worked so hard for collapsed like a tower of cards because of him, because of her association with him.
So he would force her to retreat. He would cut the ties, and make it obvious, make it clear that he had other things to concern himself with. "So do yourself a favor, run along to where you belong, because it sure as hell isn't here."
