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 Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:56 pm
be yourself
He pauses for a long time, silent and considering that she's right--the selectiveness of the red-eyed bases, the hooks of the drugs, the tenuous loyalties of the clones.
He thinks of what he's read of 1999, and it's then that he shifts, uneasily, assaulted with the mental image of the island's town in ruins and the thought that it could have been--almost was--so, so much worse.
Despite America's plaintive unease that it was getting worse, piling up, something bigger, the actual reality of the idea that they might be in the quiet run-up to something enormous and catastrophic hasn't really sunk in until this moment: the vivid picture of a house in ruins here, and hundreds, thousands elsewhere. There is, after all, no reason they have to win. It could just as easily have gone the other way, almost had.
"They're too unorganized," he whispers, with the unease of a man trying to reassure himself. "They just had that huge upheaval, they don't--have time or leadership..."
Except that they were working together, in some way he didn't yet understand, or at least someone was: a naked hairless clone under the Sahara and then, months later, competent and dangerous under the beck and command of some thrall of Merlin's.
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Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:58 pm
wounds
"You make me wanna stay," he tells her quietly.
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Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:00 pm
fair trade
"That sounds dangerously co-dependent," he said, low and teasing but serious all the same. "Sound like Chantelle if you're not careful. But," he added, smoothing his fingers through her hair, "I know what you mean. Sometimes I can't remember what it was like before you were around."
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Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:08 pm
cliffs notes
A frustrated noise escaped the back of his throat, stifled in a moment. "It's not--it's not about being professional. I'm not trying to... to compartmentalize, here. I can't ******** think of anyone I'd rather have helping me with this--"
He hesitated, raking his damp hands through his hair and not quite looking at her, eyes wandering absently along the wall. There was always a sensation of run-up before he could talk about the things he was hunting, a certain overcoming of fundamental difficulties before the words found a way out. She was right: he was reticent, he sidelined her. He sidelined everyone, unable to grapple with just talking about anything, adamantly trying (and often failing) to cope in silence and alone.
"You are the person at my back. At my side," he corrected. "Please don't ******** think you aren't. But that's just the problem. You know? Because they got--little pieces of what I remember, when I was... when I was gone. They got little significant things and so many of those things are you. You're so ******** important. They know--really well--how much you... how much I need you; they were in my head with you. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid that they won't want me to die so they'll think they can use you as... as leverage, I guess."
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:32 am
be yourself
"S'the work we signed up for, isn't it?" Americas voice was quiet and the calm of it spoke both of conviction and the impending peace of falling asleep in the safest of places with the safest people.
"Big damn heroes, s'vin th'world n'leavin pretty corpses."
It was bleak but it wasn't her right now. Right now she was home and the world was still holding on well enough.
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:47 am
wounds
She gave him a wry smile over her shoulder as she walked into the bathroom, and she doesn't have to say, But you don't. The both know it anyway.
Later, in the harbor of near-sleep, she'll try to explain what she couldn't earlier. It was all mixed up in my head,the upset and relief. I got happy over the now and ******** up over the almost all at once.
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:49 am
fair trade
"This mean I get to watch you while you sleep and say s**t like, Welcome to my world, when things get rough n'frisky?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 4:02 am
cliffs notes Heels bumping against the cabinets, America stared at the floor and considered the fact that not only could she not protect him in the field, she was now a potential weapon against him. She should be happy, to be that important to him, but it was being twisted to hurt them, and so hurt it did. "I don't like it," she stated, voice going low. "But I can accept it." Thump. Thump. "And I'll take extra care when I'm in the field for my own s**t." Thump. Thump. "Are you gonna help me or not?" Thump.
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:18 pm
cliffs notes
"I still don't even know what you want help with. What to say? Just say whatever the ******** you're thinking, don't try to... to be all delicate or what the ******** ever. How it feels? I can't do ******** anything if you want to know how it feels except tell you to go out and cultivate an eight-year-long opiate dependence. It's fine," he added, more violently than he needed to. "I'm fine and it's fine and it was a one-time lapse that stressed me out, that's it."
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:22 pm
fair trade
He laughed a little, quiet and turned away from her. "Jesus Christ. Did he really say that? Was that before or after the kid-glove spanking?" A pause, and then, drily: "I get the most horrible feeling--a sort of premonition--that next time I'm really absorbed in something rough and frisky you're gonna bust that out and ruin it." As if he wasn't prone to the same and worse.
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Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:26 pm
be yourself
He let it go, outwardly at least, so that she could have her sleepy peace. He'd said he had trouble living in the right now of late, and so he tried, tried not to think of the desperate struggle a few hours prior and the unknown ones just ahead. Tried to think of nothing but the weight of her in the curve of his arm. He wasn't good at it.
"Tomorrow," he said after a pause, "you should make me some panna cotta." A little grab at normal--the best he could manage.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 1:05 am
cliffs notes
"Just to understand," her voice carried quietly through the bathroom. Thump. "Even if only a bit, I wanna ******** a ******** little. Even if it's fine...I thought the books would...I can't even get past the first chapters," she admitted, shoulders hunched.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 1:09 am
fair trade
She shoved playfully at him, "Spoilers!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 1:12 am
be yourself "But th'giraffes," she agreed quietly, already asleep.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 1:29 am
cliffs notes
He reached out to catch her ankle, half irritated, half soothing. "That's because," he said, belaboring the point in every note of his voice, "all the chapters are s**t."
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