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 Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:30 pm
the nights were made
Lawr gave Horace a soft look. "I do deserve it." he said. "I do not fit whatever mold it is that they desire their peers to adhere to. In that sense I deserve their dislike and resentment. I confess however, I do not understand why that dislike extends to you." It was a phenomenon that he found both interesting and bewildering, in the past people had extended sympathy to those he associated with if they suspected his nature, treating them as victims in need of rescue rather than equal in loathsomeness. It did not upset him, simply was some other unexplainable quirk of this island that he had not encountered in the world outside.
"It is.. difficult to pursue normality here." he said slowly. On the outside, he would leave and find a new place to live every few years, change his peer group before anyone got too suspicious, that was normality to him. Normality was transience, moving from one microcosm to another and renewing loyalty and goodwill. Here he could not leave, he was trapped in a rapidly decaying situation long beyond the point where he would have left and was denied his personas by the loss of a hand.
He was more and more being forced to be Lawrence, a person who was not a person at all, and it was his concern that this was the individual glimpsed through the cracks that the others wished dead the way his father had wished him dead so many times in his youth before he could hide, before he learned to move and never stop.
"Building a house does not make one normal, nor does marriage or adopting trainees. What is normality really?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:37 pm
Glitches
Sometimes he would absently repeat a motion without realizing he was doing it. Over and over and over, every gesture an exact replica of the other.
He did not seem to realize as he did it now, repeating the same elaborate hand gesture incessantly as he looked out of the window lost in thought.
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:40 pm
things you cannot say tomorrow day
"I will." he said, quietly and thoughtfully. "Just be sure you know what you are asking for."
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 8:59 am
anchor
Horace's lips thinned at her name. He did not like her, he did not like the familiarity they had with each other - vicious though it was. He did not like the conversations that more than hinted at past entanglements. Horace did not like, no, he hated that lamp. It was like having the ghost of her in this room. The twisted shape was some b*****d child of the two of them. His fingers twitched. It did not feel like defiance, it felt like... something. memories, maybe He sighed, forcing himself to smile.
Jan liked it. And for that reason, he could not be selfish and demand the other man through away something he considered as part of himself. "What happened between you?" His words were careful, if slightly hesitant. Horace did not know if he really wanted to hear the answer.
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 9:02 am
Glitches
"Jan," he said curiously as he crossed the room. "What are you doing?" Reaching out, Horace captured that hand in his own, trying to still the repetitive movements.
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:03 am
hate culture
"Mmm, it's a little strong, but it's not bad." It was a little floral, but whatever made Jan happy. Horace leaned into the other man.
"Do you ever worry sometimes that someone - Dwight, maybe - will try to paint you in a bad light to the higher ups? Because of twitter stuff?" There. He'd said it - he was worried.
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:15 am
windows
Horace hummed softly as he worked. Carefully, he detached pages from his notebook, hole-punched them, and filed them carefully away in small binders. They looked like scribbles, but Horace write his note exclusively in short-hand - a habit picked up during one very bored summer. One binder held pages on each hunter, their base information as well as personal notes. Horace didn't need the binders, he remembered everything he wrote down, but it was nice and felt organized to have them. An afternoon breeze blew through Jan's window and he paused.
"Jan," he said hesitantly. "-can I bring a blackout curtain over? Just.. just for the nights I stay over. For the window." Maybe he'd sleep easier then. He was never able to shake the feeling that something was watching him. Horace imagined it was sort of how other people reacted to mirrors in their rooms, at night.
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:25 am
things you cannot say tomorrow day
"I know." Shifting, he curled closer to Jan, movements clumsy. A sleepy laugh. "Or I guess I will know."
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Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:05 am
the nights were made Horace clenched his teeth. "You do not deserve it! Just because you are not what they expect does not mean they should treat you like s**t." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I wanna tell everyone that, but no one listens. It just bothers me, okay, that they dislike you so much. They can't see the sides of you that I do." There was no hunter among them that hadn't (with time) done terrible, horrible things. He'd been through some of the files. His information was limited and reports put in by other hunters had to be carefully denuded of their personal bias. And there was a lot of personal bias - an island full of 20-somethings was not a naturally objective pool. Horace knew, of course, that he had his own personal bias towards Jan, too. He ran his hand through his hair. "Normal is different for different people. There's an idealized version of it - the house, the 'kids' - but it doesn't work for everyone." Horace leaned into the other man, as if by some strange absorption, he could bind Jan to him. A silly thought. "If you could do as you wished, what would you have on the island?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 4:06 pm
anchor
"What happened?" he repeated, considering the question, trying to thread out what Horace meant by it, what sort of answer he wanted. "Very little?" he hazarded. "I initially enjoyed baiting her on twitter, testing the bounds of her anger, trying to draw it out while teasing her chastity. I warned her she would fall foul of people who prey on those who do not respect themselves."
He idly trailed a finger across the sheets. "Later I encountered her around the facility and slept with her." he rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "And slept with her a few times thereafter. There was no fondness between us however, even then. She did not at any point profess to like me, in fact she insisted then as she does now that I was less than human."
Lying normally came to him as easily as breathing, but this time it was interesting just to be honest and see how it played out, Horace after all was not a threat. "We sparred late one night, and I defeated her. The temptation was present to remove her from my life, she had tried to strangle me. Instead I left her a reminder of me to take with her because I knew that with her vanity, it would irritate her."
"Thereafter there has been little in the way of friendliness, as you have seen. Why?" he asked. "It seems to agitate you and I confess I do not understand the issue."
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 4:20 pm
Glitches
At first his hand resisted, trying in vain to maintain the gesture he'd been repeating before he slowly seemed to be drawn out of the trance-like state he was in. He gave Horace a glazed stare that looked through him rather than at him, similar to the stare he'd received when Lawr had tried to strangle him.
He stopped moving his hand.
His eyes flicked down to Horace's hand on his.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 4:37 pm
hate culture
"No" was his flat reply. "I do not worry at all." And that was a simple fact. "If they report me then that is simply what they do. It is not the truth, and it is their job to do the relevant research to pursue the relevant threats."
He smiled slightly. "If I worried about the incompetence of others all the time, then I should never stop worrying."
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 4:44 pm
windows
Horace got an intent look as he spoke but Lawr's expression did not change even a bit, it was common when they were simply in each other's company for the pale man to simply drop all expressions, naturally stony faced. It was almost impossible to tell what he was thinking in these instants or what his response might be.
"That would be fine." he said, filing away this curious information. "Any particular reason?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 5:04 pm
the nights were made
Lawr thought about it. "Peace." was all he said.
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Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2015 8:02 am
glitches
Horace did not relinquish Jan's hand, but he gentled his grip, rubbing his thumb across pale knuckles. Jan could pull free if he wanted, but Horace didn't want to let go. It worried him, sometimes, how often Jan stared into nothing at all. It looked as though he was half-way into some dream, fragile as a mirror.
" Hey," he said, ducking his head closer to Jan. "-you ok? You were spacing out a bit again."
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