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 Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:36 am
He was looking at her, instead, with a strange and curious stare that skipped away when it was returned, never one to meet anyone's eyes and certainly not those. And of course he recognized that bitterness. It was obvious, and if it hadn't been he knew the history, or at least the broad shape of it, enough to see the shadow it cast. And with it the guilt rose up like bile: a little strategy for him, created in a place of so much venom, and it was already the one he was using, wasn't it? Make himself more valuable. Make himself better. Win, even though he knew, even now--and Fionnghal knew, and returned it in a restless movement undercutting his thoughts--he had already lost, if he was going to be so childish as to attach a sense of competition to it (and he was, of course). A fine way, he thought bitterly, to treat a friend. To say nothing of how he was treating her. He knew nothing of this strange girl in front of him, and still mistrusted her, on some level, for the strange way she had behaved in the wake of Clerise's death. But he'd already given her secrets. Maybe, he thought, this was like Lawr was for America: some safe place to put all the worst parts of himself. "I'm trying," he said finally, quietly. "So maybe I deserve less than you think."
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 2:01 am
To imply that there was something bad in what she had suggested to him caught Mimsy off-guard. On the heels of hearing that she was doing something good, it was a bit disorienting; more so when she tried to assess why replicating the most wonderful things that had ever happened to her would be negative. "Perhaps." Her eyes narrowed at the ground near his feet. There were no adjustments made in what she thought he deserved - not yet - but they now carried a notation of potential reassessment. "But she deserves better than him, which you are. I am certain of that." Lips pressed tightly together, she was silent long enough to take a deep breath to calm herself. "He left because Robert loves me, Taym. It was all encompassed within that sole reason. He would have denied me that to remain his companion. I suspect that he thinks less of me for it. He has mocked me for caring about someone who cares about me. I lived my entire life with the belief that I could not have love, and the belief that I should ignore and replace it completely. And when I found it, he punished me for not continuing to believe as much. He purposely validated the assertion that it was wrong for me to be loved. I cannot wish that upon her. I assumed that you would not either. Was I wrong?" She raised her brows and waited, not to determine if she'd made her point, but to correct her data if it really was false.
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 2:30 am
He was quiet again, again for a long time, eyes blindly searching the middle distance. "I don't know what happened between you two," he said finally. "But I know that she loves him like--I think--you didn't, and it would be wrong for me to--try and put a wedge between her and what makes her happy. Like I'm doing," he added, with a bitter little laugh. "And I'm sorry as hell that anyone would make you think there wasn't anyone out there to think the world of you, but I don't think America's got any problems on..." And here he hesitated. "... she knows better," he finished, uneasy. He gave himself a little shake. "Anyway, I understand there's all kind of bad s**t between you and Bashmet. I can't get an unbiased assessment of it so I'm reserving judgment, no offense. But I'm not going to pretend that I'm not trying to--to convince her to let me be... I don't ******** know--adequate? I consider him," he said, with difficulty, "a friend, even if I don't always understand him and I'm treating him like s**t. If she makes that decision I want her to make it from a place of--of wanting me. Not of not wanting him. But it's still going to be her prioritizing me over him, and I don't think wanting her to do that when she's perfectly happy already is... is anything noble, or good. Especially because he hasn't got much else." He shot her a look, apologetic. "I didn't mean that as a jab against you, sorry. If Bashmet's got a tight social circle it's because he's a ********' robot."
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:43 am
"You think that it's wrong to create that wedge," she muttered, retroactively calculating in search of any evidence that she had loved him, so she might correct him is that were the case. It took very little time for her to dismiss the notion entirely, and she glanced up at him long enough to finish her thought. "My warning is that he will not." They remained on him for a second longer, sternly serious, until she looked at her hands instead, idly beginning to coax the dirt out of her fingernails. "I have no desire to actively enact vengeance against him. I am happy now, and I would rather not expend my energy on someone who would prefer that I was not. I understand your hesitance, but I feel the need to stress that this is not an attempt to lure you to my side of the chessboard. I would never discourage a position of objective neutrality. You are welcome to be his friend, and if you would like to ensure that he is not alone, I will not dissuade you. It is just that--I--" She shifted her weight to one side, leaning on her hip to allow her to look back at her home more easily. The sight of it seemed to encourage her to gather the scattered bits of sentences she'd almost lost, and she closed her eyes as she turned back around, beginning to string them back together again. "I know that it must be difficult to cope with the knowledge that you are doing something that you believe is wrong, even if it may ultimately be for the best. You are kind and good too." She brushed a bit of dirt off of her dress and sighed. "That is why I have voiced my concern. And it may be selfish and hypocritical of me, but...my primary hope is that the catalyst that was intended to end my relationship does not end yours. Neither of you deserve that. Neither of you should have your love and happiness taken away by someone else's doing."
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:59 am
He'd given America six months on the outside, and he'd known even then that this would be the breaking point. Fiona had encouraged him to embrace what she considered a hollow hope in an attempt to focus him over the short-term, and he had, perhaps too effectively. "Then we'll hope," he said, still softspoken, still with his eyes roaming restlessly back and forth, "that it doesn't come down to it." As he knew, undoubtedly, that it would. As he knew, undoubtedly, that it wouldn't. The two thoughts occupied exactly the same space simultaneously. "If there's any wedge being driven between us it's not his conscious doing," he added, but there it was: that little seed of doubt. What if it was. "And if it is, he's down here in the dirt with me, and I was here first." A pause. "She'll figure out what she wants. And I'll try and convince her it's one thing, but it's hard to convince her to do anything she doesn't wanna do. I'm not going to give her any ultimatums. She'll either decide to sacrifice that or she won't, and if she doesn't..." He shifted the weight of his almost-forgotten burden, glancing back towards the little house he'd spent his time clearing, telling himself it was to keep his hands busy and hating Mimsy quietly for making him confront that there was more to it than a fear of idleness. When he finished his voice was suddenly miserable, suddenly very young. "... maybe that's how she's going to keep her love and happiness being taken away by me."
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Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 1:30 am
With a little nod, Mimsy accepted his solution, and moved from tidying her dress to counting the petals on one of the patterned roses. "Okay," she agreed, similarly gentle. "We will hope." There were no arguments against any further points, and she even began to nod again at his mentions of America's independent determination, but the affirmations abruptly stopped at his last suggestion. "It--it does not work that way, does it?" she stammered, scrambling back into a state that was more alert. " He cannot take love away with him, were he the one to go. He can absorb and reflect it, as robots do, but none is created, so none would be lost." It was standard knowledge and entirely factual. "If you go, you will always take some of her love away, as a result of the fact that you provide her with love. It is exchanged when you love each other. It is energy as much as FEAR is. Now portions of your love will always be hers, and vice versa. You would...have to give it back, for her to ensure that you could not take any. Can you give it back?" The pacing of her tone began to sound frantic, and her wide eyes mirrored the sound of her concern.
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Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:52 am
He stared at her, bewildered and alarmed, and after another long silence he had no answer for her at all. What he said instead was: "The success or failure or day-to-day existence of other people's relationships doesn't have any reflection on how yours works. You realize that, right?"
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