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Robert had gone from fully enraged, to wanting to cry, within seconds. This was all because Mimsy had turned to Amrita, and comforted her. Not him. Granted, he thought she'd tried for a moment, but he wasn't ready. Now that he was, Amrita got all the touches, all the comfort.

For someone who'd been ready to kill a moment ago, Robert looked strangely more like a hurt puppy now.

"If you go home, you're just gonna try to kill me next time I show up. Why should I let you go home? I don't wanna die either, you know. I don't want any of my friends to die. Or have you conveniently forgotten we're kind of in a war here, huh? I mean what the ******** is all of this back and forth bullshit of support and peace? Since when are you the diplomat? ********' tell me THAT, God."

Mimsy was unfairly using strong artillery, pulling out the big guns. That quote just reminded him of the way she read to him, in bed, every night. He knew what it meant, and why she was saying it, and it drove him nuts. He did NOT want to accept that she considered herself equivalent to Amrita. He loved her too damn much to even consider it, and it rolled his stomach with disgust to know she did. But she was doing exactly what she needed to calm him down, and that was telling him every detail of the story, starting from the first time they'd met.

It made sense, that they'd found one another in that world. The world where everyone's slate had been wiped clean. The world where his heart had exposed the truth about how he'd felt about her, once and for all. And she'd found this terrible girl, too.

But she hadn't been a terrible girl, then.

Mimsy wanted this. She wanted him, and she wanted her, and she wanted everyone to live through this encounter. She didn't think to ask what Robert wanted, but that did not occur to him, as it never did. All he could focus on was how badly she wanted this.

Don't you dare.

He swept into movement quickly, despite Jezebel's hissing warning. His arms were around Mimsy before she could protest, and she was in the air, curled up in the tight embrace of his arms. His eyes were focused very sternly on Amrita, as he curled Mimsy up and held her.

"This is mine. You ********' got that? If I have to let you live, and let you guys be - whatever, friends, I guess, you gotta understand that I love this woman, and I ain't gonna tolerate s**t from you on her. You don't hurt either of us again. Promise me that. Promise, goddamnit."

It troubled Mimsy that Robert assumed that Amrita would ever harm her, but Amrita addressed it in the best possible way; instead of tacking on all of the reasons why there was never any threat, which might have just made this worse, she silently let herself be held away from her as she listened, processing what each of them said.

He had not told her otherwise, aside from his initial claim. She provided all of her evidence, from fig. a to the end, and while she was certain that he quite adamantly felt that she was different, the only information she received from either of them just emphasized the fact that they were still so similar.

You only have yourself to blame for the creature I am today.

Amrita was a child when this began. A child that tried to avoid the conflict and violence with reason, but found herself in the middle of it when she was pushed past the point where fighting back became necessary for survival.

Before Deus, Mimsy discovered the best method of using logic to keep herself together. It worked for a long time, and she thought that joining them would be the last step she needed to solidify this solution. The environments she had placed herself in sustained her fantastically, where she was praised and admired, encouraged to seek more things that made sense. Any conflicts could be resolved with rational thought. But Deus wasn't like that. None of them listened, even when an explicit warning was provided, and all she sought here was nonsense. It was entirely believable that the same place that unraveled her had done the same to her friend.

She relaxed into his arms and mumbled against him.

"Thank you."

This could not have been an easy agreement for either of them to come to, but they had, over the promise that she would not be harmed. She gave Robert a tiny smile and turned to peek over one of her braids, still bundled up in a hug, to smile at Amrita.

"Thank you, too. I do still want to be your friend. You have been kind to me, and I would like to..." She intended to promise to be kind to her too, until she realized how awkward it was to say such a thing while she was safe and comfortable across from her very injured friend, in the arms of the person who had injured her. "Oh...how can I aid you in getting to a place where you can recover, without harming you further?"

The situation seemed to have calmed down, and Robert's silence made her tiny smile turn smug for only a moment. Finally. She had finally silenced him with her words. It took long enough! Granted she was sure Mimsy had almost everything to do with it, but at least she had helped, and to her that was her victory. Her attention went back to Mimsy and stayed there, that small smile returning at the offer.

"You don't happen to know how to heal, would you?" Amrita suggested, before going silent to give it a moment of thought. "Or...know how to take off my bracelet, so I can heal myself?" She had to lift her broken arm with her other one to show the bracelet on her wrist. She flinched when she moved and hissed as her whole body seemed to ache - a feeling she could never get used to - but she stubbornly kept her arm out, hoping for the best.

"You can put it right back on after." She added, as if it would sway her decision. "So you don't get in trouble."

Robert caught that look. Mimsy didn't ask, which was smart, because that was the last thing he needed her to try to convince him of, right now. But since she hadn't, he was left to his own devices, which consisted of watching Mimsy struggle to release Amrita from her protective cuff. That would mean -

"ALL RIGHT STOP IT." Robert roared out, dropping down to the ground until he was on his knees behind her. "Just. Christ already. Stop it. Hold on a ********' - can't believe I'm doin' this - of all the - "

He'd fumbled with his little package of runic bandages, opened one up, and slapped it against Amrita's shoulder. Hard. "She just needs to be able to walk. She don't need to be all fully.. healed." He couldn't look up at his handiwork, even as the effect of the bandages began to stitch her skin back together. Knowing that she was no longer his enemy made the wounds he inflected look even worse. He didn't want to feel shame over hurting Amrita. It wasn't fair.

"Can you get up yet?"