"speech" 'thought' text

Michael had filed in with the rest, feeling as though his absence from any sort of meeting would probably meet with some sort of retribution that he didn't exactly want to deal with right now. It wasn't that he'd given in to Teddy's tyranny, it was that he was currently too tired to argue. Sleep had not been a friend the past few days, he had rather pronounced bags under his eyes. It didn't matter how long he slept he never woke up feeling rested.

Everything that he'd done in his life had come back to haunt him... God knew he deserved it. Fingers raised to his chest where rested a warm piece of metal, a cross. Like his dog tags he was never without it, though he had certainly strayed from the religious path his parents had tried so desperately to keep him on. He sighed softly, and rolled his eyes towards Micah, it seemed that the man had been training in what appeared to be something of a makeshift gym and arena.

Working out was important, Mike knew this, though he'd been slacking a bit after Teddy broke his hand, there were only so many things someone could do with one hand. Even running had jarred it in the early days of it's healing. It was now a lot better, almost good as new... though it never would be the same as it had been. He knew from experience with other injuries that he'd have sporadic pain in his hand for the decades to come. A small price to pay for punching Teddy in the face.

He did have quite a few problems with the rules, but more-so with Teddy than anything else. Micah (and Mike was doing him an injustice here) was more or less just a wall of meat which Teddy hid behind. Someone to do his dirty work for him, since Teddy couldn't or wouldn't do it himself. He was sure that Micah was referring in part to him and his seemingly blatant disrespect of Teddy... and in that, disrespect for the Badlands and their administration as a whole.

He was not so blinded by his dislike of the Administration to dismiss what they'd done for the group however. It was thriving... more or less, though whether it was a good thing or not he wasn't entirely sure. He still had the belief that he should have let the Badlands crumble and die, a fitting end for a frightful regime. But really, were they actually that much worse than Catalyst, or Sheogorath? It was a good question that he thought of quite often.

If it had been Teddy in the ring, asking for challengers, Mike would have jumped in, caution forgotten. But Micah was a different story. Micah was a fighter, much like himself. Though younger. While youth was an advantage in many ways, it wasn't always the greatest advantage. when he had been a few years younger than Micah he'd challenged a fifty-some year old man to a fight, and gotten his ass handed to him on a silver platter. That wasn't to say that Micah would automatically lose because he might have less experience than Mike.

Some people were naturally talented. And while Mike had many natural talents, hand to hand combat was not one of them. Piano, absolutely. Ranged weapons such as guns, totally. He could even do a passable Charleston. But fighting one on one with no tricks up his sleeves, now that was something he hadn't historically been great at. It had taken years of training to get where he was now, and he had slacked off in the past months, while that didn't mean his skills were gone, they were certainly dull.

And then there was his hand, he flexed it absently, his eyes trailing away from Micah's form to look at his still slightly bruised extremity. He sighed softly to himself, his face remaining the mask of bored indifference that he'd cultivated for so long. Perhaps a grimace had escaped through his whole thought process, but nothing to give away the utter contempt he felt for this situation right now. His gaze shifted over to Teddy where he stood, and he narrowed his eyes slightly.

What did Teddy have to look so smug about? He was in his position only by standing on the shoulders of those far superior to him. A weak, cowardly man... who toyed with the affections of women for fun. His jaw clenched slightly, as much as he was ambivalent towards Micah, having no real hard feelings towards the man for his pulling Mike off of Teddy's form, he disliked Teddy. One might have thought that punching the man in the face and getting away with a relatively mild punishment would have taught him his lesson.

But Mike saw something in Teddy that he just couldn't put his finger on, but could absolutely blindly hate. In Teddy's eyes he read a challenge, a "you wouldn't dare take on my brother". Scorn, and a bit of distaste as well. For a few seconds all Mike could see was red, it took all his will power not to throw himself at Teddy and barrel into him. Instead, he strode from the back of the group, slipping between the crowd who began to part for him, the former leader of the Badlands.

He licked his lips, they were dry, his head throbbed with the usual dull ache that accompanied a day without alcohol, the crutch he used to numb his emotions to a point that they would no longer bother him. Perhaps his willingness to fight could look to some as an indication that he did indeed have a problem with the current state of affairs, and those with that inclination would be right, but that wasn't why he was doing this. He'd willingly signed over power to the big three as they liked to call themselves.

"Don't have problem with you, but I could use the practice." His voice lacked emotion, though his eyes had a defiant spark of light in them. Pulling off the fitted black t-shirt which he often wore, he exposed his upper half to the February air. His back and chest were a maze of injuries, lash marks on his back healed and pulled into drawn white scars. An x shape on his torso, meticulously stitched up bullet wounds on his abdomen. And weaving in and out of these injuries tattoos peppered his skin.

It wasn't a sight many Badlanders had ever seen, in fact, only a few who had witnessed him running on the beach in the summers had probably seen him without his shirt on, but up close, like this, up and personal, he felt acutely aware of the eyes on him. He hoped there was no pity for the scars he wore, each had a story to it, and almost every one told of an opponent beaten.