|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 3:52 pm
"Who the ******** says success is guaranteed?" He reached up a tingling hand to gingerly touch his jaw, to see if blood came away on his fingers.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:35 pm
No blood, but there was a bruise where his hand had collided. Kostya admired it with the same respect he gave to a job well done, and wondered how long it would last to serve as a reminder of what Obadiah had to learn.
"Your veapon is guarantee," he said, bland. "Give us power to fight, to heal. Vhen veapon cannot keep you in health, failure is belonging to you."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 5:17 pm
"If we're done reiterating what a failure I am after I ******** acknowledged it," he said flatly, "can you leave? And close the door behind you," he added, childishly crawling over to stuff his head under the pillow. He would ordinarily have screened this petty, juvenile need to escape, but Kostya had already seen too much. No point. He added, muffled: "I suck, my fault, inefficient, got it."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 6:58 pm
"No," Kostya replied, patient and unyielding, a steel blade in the face of rice paper. Taym no longer held the status of an equal: being incapable of caring after himself placed him below anyone else on Kostya's tiers of respect. He took offence to being deceived: a calm camaraderie built on the foundation two like minds turned out to have no foundation at all.
Anyone that let their body degrade so far that needed assistance from medical professionals could never value such efficiency.
Obadiah buried himself beneath the comfort of a pillow, sticking his head in the sand like an ostrich, and Kostya could have left, then. He could have turned away. He could have (and, arguably, should have) done a lot of other things.
Instead, Kostya stood rooted in his spot, idly rubbing at his ribs through the layers of his coat. They were surely bruised by the sharp edges of Taym's elbows, the vicious panicky fighting of a cornered, sickly animal.
He would force Obadiah to achieve a semblance of good health or die trying in the attempt. He needed absolution, no forgiveness: merely cooperation.
"Is the end?" he asked, voice raised just enough to accommodate for the pillow. "Lie here in defeat and toská as if you cannot fix?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 7:16 pm
A pause followed almost long enough to suggest that that was, in fact, his preferred course of action. But he rolled onto his back, shoving the pillow to the side, and addressed a sarcastic screed at the ceiling. "This experience really turned around my whole worldview! Let's keep hearing you repeat how much of a child I am while we go raid the kitchen so I'll be motivated to eat until I ******** pop. I'll flush my cigarettes, too, while you harangue me for my constant failures. Turning over a whole new leaf, thanks to your intervention." He leveled him a sullen look. "What exactly are you expecting me to do? Bounce up and shake your hand with tearful gratitude for making me see the error of my ways? I went to the infirmary--when you sent America because apparently you hadn't grown the balls yet to say something on your own--and now I am here. I don't know what you ******** want from me. I can't exactly summon a five course meal out of thin air and wolf it down in front of you. Even if I ******** wanted to, because lemme ******** tell you, there's very little as motivating as someone you consider a friend flying off the handle and treating you with contempt for something that you can't even--" Can't help. An exercise in control, a rigorous need for self-denial to prove the point that he was his own master, that he couldn't help. He laughed instead of finishing the sentence, a tired little bark. "Fine. Stay or go, I don't give a s**t."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 9:15 pm
Obadiah presented an increasingly ridiculous series of scenarios, and Kostya was not sure as to the point of this or any of the other exercises in futility Taym had requested his complicity in. He didn't want any of those things. "Change," Kostya said, slowly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Fight." For yourself, because if you are unable to do that, how can you be expected to help the darkness in the world at large? (There is a presence-- It looks. It waits. It sleeps once more.) There's very little as motivating as someone you consider a friend flying off the handle and treating you with contempt for something that you can't even--Kostya ran through his limited English vocabulary, filling in the blank with the possibilities: For something that you can't even stop. That you can't even fix. That you can't even help. None of the words he found were appealing options. Syntax came to life again, expressing his disapproval and confusion palpable, a series of infinite loops as he tried to process the situation. Neither of them had viable data. "Vhen cannot complete task on own," Kostya said, heading for the door, "is vhen to be asking for help." He looked at Taym, back to being impassive. "Vill be back in few days."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
