Pieces that don't belong together (Callen)

[sienna]

Leah hated how nothing made sense and everything just ran across from each other, throwing it in her face, that it didn’t. and while she had been listening to the long and boring speeches of the others in the room, all Ex-CIA, like her and how their arguments were all the same; stop allowing it to eat at you. Stop feeling guilty for the others still inside. But it was easy for them to say it. No, that wasn’t true, nor fair. It wasn’t easy on anyone. But, she didn’t care! She didn’t care how hard it was on them and how they all thought they’d dealt with some of the worst. And thus, she had resided to working through the papers in front of her, scattered on the table she used as to eat dinner at, or breakfast, or lunch, or whatever. Anyhow, it was a table and it should be used to work at, she had decided that, only this morning, while there was a slow drizzle outside her window.

She’d had plenty of time, today, as she had been given a free day, on which she only assumed she would have to look for another job in the morning. None of that mattered right about now, as she had different stuff on her mind. Stuff she’d been ignoring for a couple weeks now. It all came back to the CIA, Fordham.. Okay, call her obsessive, paranoid, but she had a purpose too. Finding her brother. Finding little Ben. Ben probably thought it was an honor to be working for them, if he still was. She was fairly uncertain if they threw out people as well, once they got to a certain age. If that was the case and he had been booted out at twenty, too, then he was out for five years and she just had to find him.

She had been at the exact same spot her brother was probably at. Thinking it was an honor to be chosen to work for the authorities at such a young age, she later began to realize that it was a shame to throw away her youth like that, but she still thought of it as an honor. And you didn’t laugh in the face of honor. No, that started when she had been twenty and had been dumped on the streets like a street-rat. And she had been scared and alone and betrayed and angry.. Yes, she was still angry, for having had the proper training to be a spy, but not having gotten the security. And yet, you just took it on your shoulders until you found another.. responsibility. She had enough of those on her hands and yet, her goals, seemed to slowly fade away as her life continued, as if it was slowly passing her by. Absurd, really and yet, so very real. The CIA should have never left her broken like that. Broken them. All of them.

With a sigh, she looked up from her ‘work’ to listen to the people behind her, while looking at the clock and seeing it was already two hours since she started on it. And she realized it had been fifteen minutes since the two of them tried to be getting through to her. Fifteen freakin’ minutes that could have been spent better. Most like her, as she was looking for something for something useful, anything. That was at least some progress she had made. And most of these papers were on her ‘knowledge’ of the CIA anyway, although it kept being a tedious slow progress where guessing wasn’t going to get you anywhere, unless you had some hard and solid facts.

And the other papers? They were on Fordham, of the little things she knew and caught on to. She was determined to stop them on the way too. And get her brother out, while she was at it. Oh yes, she had to at least achieve that.

“You know,” she heard someone say, “you go do your crazy detective work some more, let’s go.” She heard footsteps and when they left, she dropped down on a chair, half exhausted and half happy they were finally gone. Why had they even been here? To determine if she was losing it, or not? Wasn’t it the goal of all of them, to put an end to the CIA and Fordham on the way? To stop them from using children like they had used them?

She cursed loudly, as she closed her eyes and sighed. What a terrible sight it must have been, she mused, with a slow smile creeping on her face, how they thought she was losing it, while she thought she was merely doing what the other were.. ‘lacking’? she was one of the oldest to have gotten out, but didn’t feel like that at all. Sometimes she just felt like she was an eighteen year old, just fresh out of high school, having grown up sheltered and protected. Oh, how she wished she had.

___________________________________________________

words; 840
muse; Stars - Dead Hearts
credits; zie @ CAUTION!
lyrics by fun.!

[CALLEN MICHAEL O'CONNOR]

SLEEPING PILLS KNOW SLEEPING DOGS LIE NEVER FAR ENOUGH AWAY GLISTENING IN THE COLD
SWEAT OF GUILT I'VE WATCHED YOU SLOWLY WINDING DOWN

Callen liked the fact that he didn't get stiff respect from most of the ex-CIA. He didn't want any of it. He didn't deserve any of it, really. The person who deserved it was Dmitri, whether he believed it or not. Cal had been the one that had done the recruiting, the one that had done everything that needed people skills. He was a talker, everyone knew that. Most people, however, did not know how much of a smooth talker he could be, and how deceptively manipulative he could be when it came to certain things. He was a talker, yeah, but more extensively than the average person. It'd come in handy a lot back when he was in the CIA, and even before that, but it also came in handy after he'd been booted out of the CIA. It was funny, though, because the skill that they'd helped him hone, had been one of the things that he majorly used against them. Justice tasted like apple pie, except maybe not, because wasn't apple pie as American as baseball? And wasn't the ex-CIA technically going against a major part of America? He couldn't bring himself to care, and shrugged off the now useless metaphor. He wasn't doing anything major today, working the afternoon in the shop, harassing Bay at some point, and checking in with his group members, which was what he was doing right now. Some of them, he didn't know too well. Some of them, he'd only met through word of mouth, friends of friends, people talking. Some of them, he'd known them for years. Some of them, he'd been with since his CIA days. Then there were some of them that he knew the names of, their appearances, and that was it. There was a variety.

He tried to fix that. Really, he was protective of every single one of them, whether he knew them well or not. They'd all gone through similar things, they were all in this together, to quote High School Musical, which Bay had once had an unhealthy obsession with. It didn't matter what they'd done or where they'd come from, how much baggage they had, because Callen came from a crappy background and he'd done a lot of bad things too, and so he got it. He got it how sometimes, they would look at their hands and see them as weapons, he got how sometimes nightmares would keep them awake for days, and they stayed awake and sipped on coffee and energy drinks because that was easier than the things that would chase them in a time that was supposed to be filled with restful sleep. He got all the deep, dark things that could weigh down a person's heart until they felt like it was too difficult to move when they woke up in the morning. He understood every single bit of it, but that didn't mean he allowed it to hold him back. He forced it back, he made sure that he could smile in the morning, even if he didn't believe the smile he was wearing. He made sure that he could go and say good morning to Bay, that he could tease Dmitri before he had his coffee, and that he could deal with customers in the shop or people he had to encounter during the day. He forced himself to be okay, because if he let everything he had within him hold him back, he'd never go anywhere, he'd never do anything, and the world would go on without him. He knew that people like Bay and Dmitri depended on him, and he couldn't let them down. On top of that, he knew that the CIA needed an ass-kicking, and he wanted to be there personally to watch their teen division fall. It was a thirst for blood that no one but the ex-CIA would understand.

He walked into the room, nodding to a few of them that he didn't know too well. He got a respectful nod from the both of them as they left the wrong, and he shook his head slightly, getting rid of the feeling. He was just another one of them, he didn't need to be looked up to. The feeling bothered him in a way he couldn't put into words, a feeling that he'd never needed to put into words. There was a red head sitting down, and he pulled up a chair next to her as she worked, turning it around and sitting on it backwards. "Hey - Leah, right?" He didn't know her well. He knew that she was one of the older ones they had in the group, and he'd heard some things about her here and there, but he didn't believe heresy. He liked hearing things from the straight, and getting to know people instead of judging them based on rumors. The one thing he hated was judgmental morons.

T A G G E D ? ! leah!
W O R D C O U N T ? ! eight fifty eight
M U S E ? ! cal is fading in and out iunno
N O T E S ? ! hope this was okay!
C R E D I T ? ! graphic credit goes to EMMYSAURUS ?! of caution two point oh. lyric credit goes to imogen heap with the song speeding cars.

[sienna]

Leah knew that what she was doing wasn't smart or whatever, to look at the past in order to deal with whatever was thrown at her in the future. Well. Thrown at all of them, to be honest, but she didn’t really think in the ‘them-way’, she thought in the selfish way, the ‘her-way’. It was her life and even though she was walking it with others since a couple of years, none of those others could walk it for her. None of them could just take away her nightmares and shush her back asleep, after she woke up after about three hours of sleep over the whole night. No, they all dealt with their problem and they didn’t care that she was addicted to coffee. That she was out of options to not fall down at any moment of the day or to daze out whenever she was at work. Coffee was now an addiction to her, that was probably not good at all, even though she didn’t care. She didn't want to afford herself to care. Or to even stand still and wear that pretty little smile she had gotten so well at. Pretending seemed to be her second.. third name, by now.

When she heard someone come in, she didn't look up, didn't even wave or whatever to acknowledge him or her. Whoever it was. If it was someone of the lead, then she would know soon enough. But, right about now she half-expected some of those incredibly pesky and incredibly judgmental people to have come back to try and drag her ass outside. Or whatever their stupid plan was. However, when that someone pulled up a chair, she did look up. "Yes, you got that right, what can I do for you?" She said, realizing she sounded more tired than cheery, as she had planned to be sounding, even though she wore a smile on her face, being a constant reminder of how screwed up everything was in her head. She looked him over and bit her lip ever so slightly, as she thought she recognized him. "Callen, right?" Yeah, she hadn't took the time to actually learn everyone's name around here, even though she was around long enough.

She had the vague idea she was supposed to know him. Was he someone of the lead? He could be, he looked the part. But, she was terrible at remembering faces, unless she saw them on a day-to-day base. But, she was okay with names. And sometimes, like now, the names and the faces seemed to fit. That was something new. She looked down at the papers again and then pushed them aside. Not thinking she should be looking at them, while he was obviously looking for a conversation, or to see if she hadn't lost it yet, depending if he believed the rumors. And even if he did, then the conversation was short and pretty much one-sided. She hated it to be judged by people who pretended like they picked up their lives so much better then she did. How could you even do that? How could you just pretend you weren't taken from your home at a young age and trained to be a spy. Trained to use a weapon.

___________________________________________________

words; 554
note; Hope this is okay. My muse isn't cooperating.
credits; zie @ CAUTION!
lyrics by fun.!

[CALLEN MICHAEL O'CONNOR]

SLEEPING PILLS KNOW SLEEPING DOGS LIE NEVER FAR ENOUGH AWAY GLISTENING IN THE COLD
SWEAT OF GUILT I'VE WATCHED YOU SLOWLY WINDING DOWN

Callen knew that they all had their own ways of dealing with things. They all had pasts where everything hadn't been ice cream sundaes and magical rainbows with pots of gold at the ends of them. That also meant that they had their fair share of unhealthy coping methods. He himself didn't think about anything. He didn't let himself. He didn't dwell on what happened, what he could've done, the what ifs that threatened to surface, that could hang over him like grey clouds on a rainy day, for the rest of his life. He kept himself busy, he made sure that he always had something to do, and when he didn't, he found something. He was a ball of energy, and that helped in keeping himself busy. There was always something to do if he knew where to look. He knew it wasn't healthy. Hell, he knew that pretending everything was honky dory wasn't healthy either, but he didn't really pay attention to it because it worked in a day to day manner, and that's all he needed. Callen looked at the bigger picture, always, but that didn't mean that for certain select things, he didn't pay attention to detail. He worked on a day to day basis, with a goal ahead of him. Everything else would fit into that mold.

"You can't do anything for me, love. Just checking up on everyone, daily rounds and all that," he said, smiling charmingly. Sometimes, his smooth side peeked out unintentionally. "That's right, Callen O'Connor, at your service." He said, and then scanned her face. Despite the smile, her voice didn't sound cheerful. It sounded like exhaustion hiding in her tone. He didn't like it. "Anyone giving you a hard time? I'm here for a reason, as is Dmitri. We try to keep everyone in line, but, y'know, things get overlooked sometimes." They weren't perfect, but they did their best. He knew that Dmitri killed himself to be the best leader he could be, and Callen knew that he could never take over, never fill those shoes. He did his best, whatever he could do really, to be a hand to anyone in need. That was one of his functions, really, to be that ground floor person that people could come to if they needed to.

Cal really wasn't the judgmental type. He tried to come across that way, but sometimes, an image in someone's mind couldn't be helped by his actions. When he talked to thw ex-CIA, any of them, he was genuine. He tried to help. He tried to be the person that they needed. Sometimes, it worked. Other times, it didn't. He was the type of person to go out on a limb for other people. He was protective, overprotective even, of the people that he viewed as his responsibility. He tried not to be impulsive - because he knew Dmitri had a strong impulsive bone in his body when it came to the people he cared about, one that would be considered almost self-sacrificing, and could be dangerous in the right circumstance - and he had to offset it in some ways. He pulled himself out of his mind, breaking out of the trend of unfinished and ramble-y thoughts, and looked to Leah.

T A G G E D ? ! leah!
W O R D C O U N T ? ! five seventy one
M U S E ? ! its callen, does that say everything or
N O T E S ? ! sorry if this was a bit craptastic
C R E D I T ? ! graphic credit goes to EMMYSAURUS ?! of caution two point oh. lyric credit goes to imogen heap with the song speeding cars.