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 Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:55 pm
"Yes," Rodney said. "Not here, but before."
Rodney looked even sadder at Lawrence's list of his sins.
"I know," he answered softly, but started at the hand slap, as if he was the one who had been struck.
"It's..." There were a lot of answers. He turned over the rice gently. "Do you know why I left my parents?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:36 pm
Lawrence looked at his hand in confusion at Rodney's response, not even aware what he'd done until the other man responded to it.
He gave him a confused look, complete with head tilt for his question.
"No." he replied. "Why?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 6:35 pm
"They were...worse people. When I was home. I made them worse."
The food was good, and for him, not twisted with any kind of regret. It was still hot, and had been made with care.
"I don't feel like that's true with you. You try, when you're with me."
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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 6:47 am
Rodney's response didn't seem to resolve the confused expression on Lawrence's face. "I can't understand how you could ever make anyone worse." Conflicted perhaps, guilty perhaps but not worse.
The mention of him trying made his gut twist in what was almost frustration. He had noticed the attempts to be liked, the attempts to pretend to be a decent human being. This fact made him tense and on edge and he wasn't sure why.
"What good is trying if it is not good enough?" And in turn, not being good enough meant that he fell short of perfection. Not enough.
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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 9:14 pm
"That's kind of you to say," Rodney said. But he had. He twisted his fork. And now he'd killed them also.
Maybe they deserve it, Sorrow muttered.
"They didn't deserve it," Rodney answered, very quietly. To Lawrence, he asked, "What do you mean? Not good enough for what?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:11 am
"Not good enough to be considered perfect, not good enough to be considered human, not good enough to be seen as anything other than a strange thing which should have died before birth."
He sat down his fork, presumably assuming the tiny amount he'd eaten was more than sufficient.
"I want nothing more than to start over again as someone new but here I cannot do it. The hand means I am trapped and it is the most awful sensation I have experienced."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 7:16 am
"Do you know a lot of perfect humans?" Rodney joked, a little sadly. "I've never seen you as anything but human."
Rodney had never been anyone else.
"Who would you be?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 1:22 pm
Lawrence had been so many things, more than he could even remember, personas donned and discarded as needed simply to get ahead.
"Someone else." he said with an exhalation. "I have been so many things. The further I am from the me which married Maja the better they seem to be. Perhaps it is why I favour women, people are less hostile and fearful of them too generally."
Rodney got an arched brow. "And you are possibly the only person who has ever seen me as human. Even my parents found it difficult after witnessing the strange childhood I had. Maja thought I was human, she believed it until she realised there was something missing and left."
He snorted.
"Essentially I would be someone anywhere but here."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:56 pm
"Maja was...the first time you tried?"
Rodney looked at the long row of pods.
"If I could be someone else, I'd be someone brave. Biblically, Jesus is referred to as a lamb...and a lion. Most of the time, I feel like a mouse."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:03 pm
"I don't know." he said, and immediately felt a sense of panic at being evasive with Rodney, so used to him responding with more sadness and dissapointment when he did. The positive feedback he sought was so very hard won. "I mean yes. Maybe. It did not matter regardless."
Rodney got a confused sort of look for his comment, far too laden with metaphor for him to properly parse it. He meandered off the track just a little as he slowly said. "Mice... urinate frequently and are hairy? I do not think those things apply to you. They are also small. Not all of you is."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:08 pm
Rodney gave Lawrence a rare flat look, and whispered, "Obviously I'm not talking about...urinating."
He stirred his rice.
"Mice are...meek. Everything's bigger than them, so when there's a threat, they hide. Nothing's threatening to a lion. Even animals that are bigger. That's why they're known for being brave."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:14 pm
Lawrence looked what could be construed as offended at the obviously. "I apologise that I am not up to date on what respective animals are known for. I mostly know them in a hands on capacity which involved a lot of bodily fluids and sometimes being bitten. You say mice are meek, my index finger, the one I don't have anymore, would show different. Rodents can be fighters."
He shook his head. "And you are not a mouse. You are a person."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:23 pm
"Yes, haha, you're right. That's a phrase too. 'Are you a man, or are you a mouse?' Of course, I'm a person."
And Lawrence was too.
"I just don't feel very brave."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:27 pm
"Seems a pointless phrase when the answer is obvious." he said with a curt nod. "It would always be man."
He tilted his head at Rodney. "But you came here. You hang around me which is ostensibly a dangerous thing, you make comments against the general grain of opinion, that is also brave. I feel that somewhere you have confused stupid with brave."
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 6:36 pm
"Popular opinion or keeping company, I'm not afraid of. It's just in battle. I'm not afraid to die. It's just everything before. ...When I came here, it was with the intention to help in a nonviolent capacity. I didn't really understand the capacity the organization called for. That's why I appreciate you trying to help, on the training field. Even if we didn't get very far," Rodney admitted.
"You haven't heard that phrase? That's the point. To get someone to answer, 'I'm a man,' and then do whatever had called their bravery into question. Otherwise, they'd be a mouse. Not literally, but a cowardly person."
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