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 Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 10:13 am
Gently was sitting at home, relaxing for a moment. Her on the go lifestyle was wonderful and certainly kept her busy, but that did not mean she could go without breaks every now and then. Today was a day for that. She was wearing shorts and a sweater, curled up on her couch, playing her Nintendo.
It was the perfect way to relax, she found, with the addition of a glass of wine she had not quite started on.
Her cell phone rumbled and she glanced its way. It did not move again so she knew she got a text and not a call. Pausing her game, she reached over to pick up the phone and glance at its screen.
She had recently updated to a fancier phone, with its pretty glowing touchscreen and its smooth, flat design. She liked it a lot, and so far had not gone too long without messing with it, download apps and just generally enjoying her new toy. She pulled down the menu and opened up her text, seeing one from Tag.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Hey babe. Got a reservation at Brioche Con at 9. Big news.
He wanted to meet her at one of the nicest restaurants in town. It was often on the news, for its fine dining, excellent service, and, of course, for the number of engagements that happened there. Proposals.
Big news.
Gripping her phone tightly in her now white and shaking hands, she tried to keep the excitement rising in her chest well shoved down.
It would take her a while to get ready, but she was going to look her damned best and it would be worth it.
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Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 11:45 am
Tag arrived at Brioche Con half an hour early to prepare himself for the dinner. It was a big night for him - and god was he nervous about it. He dressed his finest, knowing she would remember the night and he wanted her to remember him at his best. He even ordered a very pricy bottle of fine wine - partially to ease his nerves, and partially to satisfy her.
His plan of arriving early, however, was ill-thought as it only bought time for him to over think, fret and let his anxieties get the best of him. As a result, by the time Gently would even arrive to the restaurant, he would already have killed half of that bottle.
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Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2012 12:18 pm
Gently arrived on time, though she had tried to look like she was not excited or expecting anything. She wanted to be late, but she just could not suffer even five more minutes of waiting.
It had already felt like an eternity, just getting to nine.
She was wearing a tight, low cut, silky black dress. Her hair was curled and wavy at once, and she wore a jewel hair clip to keep it pinned back. It was longer than she usually kept it, but in a silly way it made her feel pretty. Especially on nights like tonight.
Not that she'd ever had a night like tonight before.
Smiling, she approached the table and told herself to act normal. She stopped by his side first, kissing him with a bit more passion than she meant to start the evening with before slinking away from him and taking her seat. She tasted wine on his lips and tilted her head at him.
Nerves? He was nervous. She'd never seen him nervous before, not like this. The butterflies that had nestled in her stomach woke up, and she swallowed hard.
"I didn't know what to wear... I'm not used to cryptic messages leading to last minute dates. Not that I mind," she was talking too much already, and she fiddled with her hair nervously.
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 11:57 am
Tag, despite all his feelings and nerves, put up a pleasant smile as Gently walked through the restaurant and to the table. She truly did look great, and seeing her seemed to have a simultaneous effect of easing the nerves while also increasing his own emotional intensity. "You look great," he said as he motioned to a glass of wine, already poured for her. "Please, have a drink. Relax." He reached out a hand across the table to hold onto hers by the candlelight as he prepared himself for what he needed to do. With his other hand, he discreetly - or maybe not so discreetly - checked his inner coat pocket for a small container that he was preparing to give to her, just for double-checking. "As I said, I have big news."
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:35 am
Gently looked at the wine and smiled, nodding her head. She was not going to relax. That word had almost fallen out of her vocabulary the moment she got his message, and she struggled to even remember what it meant.
How could she relax? He was asking her a lot, though she hoped his questions would get easier soon. She already had an answer in her mind, and it was simple.
Gently had never imagined herself the sort to settle down. She had a few disastrous relationships under her belt, and plenty of her own mistakes, yet somehow, something in the Negaverse had awoken a side of her she hadn't realized had been maturing. A loving, familial side, that wanted all the trappings of a movie life. House, dog (or cat, in her case, as she had Adorable to think about), a white picket fence. A husband. Kids.
She could have that life. She felt like it was right in front of her, and she had been stupid to not see it before. Her heart was in her throat, filled with hope and love and excitement. Maybe this was the change she had been seeking, she had just been looking in the wrong places.
She realized she was staring at him, still as a statue, and moved to take her glass in hand. If her heart skipped any more beats she was fairly sure it would stop altogether.
"So I heard... what is this big news?" She couldn't help it but prompt him. But hey, he was a news guy. He was good with prompts.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:49 am
"I ******** my make up artist." There it was. The news was out, and now he had to suffer the consequences. He pulled out the small package of tissues from his coat pocket - a small plastic package of tissues - and placed it on the table for her. "I can't do this relationship anymore," he explained. He knew that there may be better ways to break up with a girl - the its-not-you-its-me lines and other cliches, but he wanted to be honest. He felt she deserved at least that from him. "I need to be set free. I'm not a guy who is looking to settle down, and if I were, you're not the girl I want to settle down with. We want different things." Once the honesty started to come out, he couldn't quite shut himself up. "And it's not just the make-up artist," he continued like word vomit. "It's many girls. Even if I'm not sleeping with them, I want to. And I try, I try to be faithful but I can't. It cripples me. I can't do it. We have a connection, and you mean so much to me. I've been with you longer than any relationship I've had before but..." He trailed off. "I'm saying we're done," he clarified, in case it wasn't painfully clear enough.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:07 pm
Gently felt the color draining from her face as his words sank in, one at a time, like little knives. Really, his first six words had been enough, and every explanation after that just felt like salt in the wound.
"You..."
She was not sure why she was so surprised. She knew what kind of man he was, from the start. She knew what their relationship had been. Somehow she had tricked herself into thinking she was, in some way, special. That maybe because it was her, and they were them, that she would be different to him. That she would be worth it.
Reality shattered that illusion all too thoroughly. She was, in the end, just another notch in his bedpost.
Eying the tissues, she felt anger rising up in her. It was familiar, it was safe. She escaped inside it immediately, grabbing her drink, which she was not thankful she had not had too much of, and throwing the contents in his face.
The glass itself followed shortly after.
"You're bloody well right we're done, you miserable piece of filth!" she yelled, probably much louder than she really needed to even with her fury behind her. Maybe she wanted the world to know how hurt she was, and how he had done it. "You didn't have to cheat on me, you s**t! Have I ever denied you, ever? Kept you on a leash? I'm soooo sorry I was crippling your c**k from all the fun it wanted to have! Gosh, I am a terrible person. Commitment! Ha! What was I thinking? Well, you'd better just have off and go find something else to sleep with. Maybe one of those ladies over there? They seem interested, and I'm sure their husbands won't mind."
Not that he would understand what a husband was, she decided. She had to resist the urge to turn the whole table over on him, but instead settled for storming toward the front door as fast as her tight black dress would allow.
She had done some very foolish things in her life. She'd failed in spectacular and embarrassing ways before. But she had never felt so stupid as she did in that moment, biting back tears now that her back was to him.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:20 pm
Well that just wasn't rational. Tag had thought that if he took her out to a fancy place she'd feel pressured to not make such a scene, but that plan backfired big time!
That was an eighteen hundred dollar suit she just threw wine at! It's a good thing he dumped her - she clearly had no sense of the importance of fashion.
"Gently, wait!" he called after her as she stormed away. He started to chase after her without making more of a scene than was already made. There were still things they needed to work out - him getting his stuff out of her place, her getting stuff out of his, and apparently now he also had to convince her to pay his dry-cleaning bill or otherwise buy him a new suit. "Please!"
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:28 pm
"Oh, I really do not recommend you following me right now," she snarled as she stomped off down the street, swearing as her ankle rolled and her high heel shoes betrayed her. She had to stop so she could pull the things off, then continued down the street.
No one followed them out of the restaurant, at least.
She decided to turn down an alley, a home away from home. The shadows and creepy, unsafe air offered her a bit of comfort. It was a place where she felt the strongest, knowing she was usually the creature lurking in the shadows, the one that held all the power.
Not the victim.
She turned to see if he would follow her, folding her arms and glaring at the space where he would come into her view. There were plenty of things around her that she could grab and throw at him, if need be, which was fine by her.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:32 pm
Tag hurried out of the restaurant, quickly leaving his credit card with the host as insurance for him to return, and chased after her down into the alleyway. "Gently, please, stop," he said, reaching out to grab her by the shoulder and hopefully slow her down so they could talk rationally about the awful expectations of monogamy.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:44 pm
Gently powered up the second she felt his touch on her shoulder, spear in hand. She watched him with dangerously calm eyes. A woman so very upset, looking so very calm, was an unpredictable one. Even she didn't know what she wanted to do.
So it could go any way for him, though likely none would result in her forgiving him, or offering to pay for his suit.
She glared at him.
"Touch me again, and I will make you eat your hands."
Cheating on a reporter/actress was one thing. It would likely result in big scenes and likely some unflattering articles in the paper or on a blog, but it would not be devastating. Cheating on a violent Negaverse general was an entirely different story.
"You're pathetic, Tag. You're just like every other human. A disgrace to what you could be, and a man who will never reach his full potential. Because you're a coward. You're a s**t boyfriend, a s**t soldier, a s**t reporter. And guess what? You're s**t in bed, too."
She didn't believe any off that, save the first, but was just thinking about being hurtful and mean. She stepped back, resisting the urge to rip out, and then stamp on, his starseed.
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:00 pm
Tag couldn't help but roll his eyes as Painite tried to list things he was bad at, but managed to stop himself from at least verbally calling her bluff. s**t in bed? Bullshit. "You need to cool off," Tag said before swiftly powering up into Captain Osumilite. "Don't do anything stupid and get all crazy just because you got dumped. What the hell were you expecting out of me anyways, General?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:25 pm
"I don't expect anything from you, Captain."
She knew she shouldn't have. And how could she tell him she had? How could she tell him she was imagining them together, living a happy, almost normal life. Working together in the negaverse, in the newsroom. At home, with a baby. Something she could call a perfect life.
How could she tell him she hadn't expected him to break her heart? She felt like a fool just thinking it.
She felt her anger fading, and she lost that safety net rage had formed around her. She felt her eyes stinging with tears as she glared at him, feeling her face heating up, her breath catching in her chest.
"I don't ever want to see you again."
She teleported after that, going straight home despite her usual hesitance to be powered up near her real house. She just couldn't be bothered right now. She needed to get drunk, needed to cuddle her cat and forget everything. Then maybe go out and make other people hurt worse than she was.
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