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 Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 3:00 pm
Rodney had spent a lot of time at the library, and hadn't even made his way through half of the material and files. He knew that he had endangered his family. He felt sick thinking about it. When he left home, he'd never wanted to come back. Not to call, not to write. But he didn't want them...killed, either. He didn't even know if the police had contacted them after he was dead. He had left them a note, saying nothing was their fault and that he was in a better place, but it had felt like a lie. His friends, too...online, and the ones he'd worked with...he'd worried about them. Because of the danger involved, the funeral, the death arrangements, his...suicide, in some ways. That part wasn't a lie. Only...delayed, a little.
But it had been a once in a lifetime opportunity to know. To make a difference. To maybe...meet his brothers again...
America had written an excruciatingly detailed report of the clone's activities during its stay on the island, and it seemed like all the answers were wrapped up here, in a cold box, as if it could be exorcised by documentation. Her stay at the house she'd built for Taym, Kostya, and herself. The fight with Horace. Having sex with Lawrence. Moving in with Lawrence and Melvin. The talks with Dawson, finding a name and a sense of self-worth beyond being a pawn. The clone's suicide.
She must have lived the suicide. In a way. She reflected on what the clone was, or more specifically, what she thought it had been missing.
He had folded the documents shut (still plenty to pore through) and come back for dinner, but been quiet the rest of the day (Lawrence had actually eaten at least some of his dinner).
The next day Rodney asked if Lawrence could show him some of what Harrison had shown him, regarding blocks.
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 4:46 pm
Being trapped on the island was the absolute worst for Lawrence. It wasn't just the snow, it wasn't just the looks he sometimes got, it wasn't just being trapped in his persona around people he did not trust, it was the very fact that he was trapped at all. For some reason being on the island with the thought that at any moment he could go on a mission or take a break for some leave was a completely different creature to being on the island with every door closed to him. He could not abide being trapped, it took every dial he had and turned it up to 11, which - without a true emotional range to gauge these physical sensations by - simply made him feel restless and as if he wanted to do something.
His own thoughts had been lingeringly on America's comments about how he'd looked when she first met him and trying to gauge if there was any merit to them, if he had looked different at all at that point versus now and not being able to see any difference at all when he looked in the mirror.
The food was not sitting well with him either and he had been eating as little as he could get away with and finding that his body didn't much like it either. He wasn't faint at least.
When Rodney asked if he'd share the knowledge that he had learned, he saw no reason not to, determined to at least work off some calories and the tangled up energy which wanted an outlet somewhere.
Bundled up tightly, he headed to the training fields. "I wish it would stop being COLD." he said irritably. "I am not sure how much help I can be to you but I will do my best."
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 8:44 pm
Rodney walked a little closer in response, arm against Lawrence's arm, but didn't say much, still thinking over everything.
He finally responded when Lawrence talked.
"I'm not sure if I'll be any good either," he said, about as comfortable going to the training fields as he had been going to the shower, "but I'll do my best too."
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 5:13 am
The contact, however brief took Lawr by surprise and he gave Rodney a fleeting sidelong look, leaning a little closer for the sheer sake of warmth.
"It will be fine, you won't be hurting anyone, I did not get harmed even against Harrison and he is far stronger than either of us. There is nothing to worry about. Did you ever play a sport?" he looked the other man over, dubious if he had. "Or done weights, running or a fitness regime? Just treat it like that, that is all that it is."
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 7:48 am
"Not really," Rodney said. He had been hit before. "I'd be alright if it was just that."
He took down his hair as they walked, holding Seven's totem in his hands.
"Did you end up talking with Melvin?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 8:02 am
"I don't understand your issues with non-aggressive physicality. I would not even go so far as to call it violence." he got a little bit haughty about it, finding himself rendered irritable by what he saw as Rodney's irrational and illogical aversion to even sparring. He avoided sparring himself but it was not out of any actual reason other than the fact that he was frankly rather lazy and did not want people to be familiar with his weapon or prepared to deal with it.
The question regarding Melvin was answered tersely. "Not yet, no." he said, before latching back onto the previous topic in an attempt to avoid dealing with the new one.
"Did something happen to you?" he asked.
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 3:39 pm
"Yes," Rodney said.
"Why did you stop eating?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:03 pm
Lawrence could not in all politeness pry into the other man's business. The very constraints of polite conversation forced him to concede to the question he frankly did not want to have to answer.
"I did not stop eating." he said. "I still eat. Just perhaps not a great deal. I forget or don't feel the need. At one point when I was young I did in fact cease to eat. I ceased to do anything autonomously."
He set his mouth into a very thin line. "Why is it so important to everyone?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:28 pm
"I don't know Harrison well enough to say. Has America asked? I think she...feels apart from things. Maybe you feel apart too. Melvin loves you. I..."
Rodney twisted the beads.
"If you had fallen into the pit, I'd come to find you too." He continued, softer, "We're friends, aren't we?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:39 pm
"America tells me things." he said flatly. Usually cruel things, but they were mutually cruel to one another. "Not pleasant things, and she is aware of the situation, however people perceive it, but she says that she would not be able to do anything anyway." He did not address the mention of feeling apart at first, intending to skip over it like so much else before seeming to mentally trip on it and come back. "I cannot frankly imagine what it would be like to be an actual part of things. It would require an emotional engagement I do not feel."
Melvin did love him, but that like everything else would be transient, the man had fallen in love with him while he pretended to be someone else and the attachment wasn't to him whatever he was beneath the splintered layers of persona but to a created individual tailored to his specific needs. His love, fixed to such an impermanent anchor could and would one day be shed like a skin, he had no doubts about this.
"I would hope we were friends." he said, shivering. "But I confess I am hardly a shining example of the things a friend should purportedly be."
The snow was the worst, he noted as he almost slipped on a frozen chunk of ice on the path to the fields, and regaining his footing he moved right back to his position shoulder to shoulder with Rodney. "I would say that decision ultimately falls to you more than anyone else."
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 5:26 pm
"You've been a friend to me," Rodney said, looking bleakly out into the snow, "the island's different from anything I was used to."
He caught Lawrence's elbow as he slipped, helping him back to his feet.
"You felt like it for a while. Before I moved in. What changed?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 5:42 pm
"Nothing changed." he said grimly. "At least nothing in my opinion of you, though I assume many things in your opinion of me altered." he sighed. "I feel rather frequently that you can see straight through me. And I constantly wonder when you are going to address it."
"I am always concerned that there is something of dissaproval in you to things that I do which work for Melvin and I do not know how to address it." he felt torn in two distinct directions without clear personas for either and it was if not emotionally distressing then physically taxing. "I do what is best for Melvin. I fixed him. He was broken and hurting himself, I gave him what he needed and weaned him from it. Now he loves me but is that not the best thing for him? I take care of him. I do what I can."
He looked tired as he went on. "But doing what I can to maintain his happiness seems for whatever reason to run counter to yours. I try to help you, to keep you with materials, never wanting for food, I answer the questions you ask me and I try to understand the often complex moralities you expound without the emotional apparatus to decipher them."
Shaking his head he concluded. "Is that a change?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 6:51 pm
"As you said, I think you feel...apart. You don't...have to maintain me. But. Maybe you feel like the people you know are plants. Some of them you put by the window, and water...I think, you've been very kind to Melvin. And in return, he loves you and is devoted to you. He would do anything for you. I don't think...he thinks very highly of himself. But I don't think that was your doing. And...me, you've been...very kind to me. I think...you think of me as someone you would like to see grow, too."
Rodney smiled slightly, but his overall demeanor was morose.
"I think there have been other people too, you didn't care what they grew into. Or, you wanted to...stop them from growing into something you didn't like. So you...."
Rodney took a shuddery breath.
"Destroyed them. And now, no one will ever know what they would have been."
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 7:05 pm
Lawrence was quiet for a bit after Rodney spoke, once again wishing that he could just shut down on the whole topic or sidestep the accusation inherent in what the other man had to say. He wasn't sure how to argue either if he tried, he didn't understand why it wasn't appropriate to treat people like they were plants, after all they had simple needs and responded well to attention.
And sometimes, it was true that they needed to be trimmed or pruned.
"I like you." he said. "And the choices I have made were made as logically as I was able at the time. I still admittedly find it difficult to understand why it is acceptable to get rid of a plant or an object but people are exceptional. There are so many exceptions as far as people are concerned but when I ask I am told it is to do with sentience, emotion and hurt and having no "right". But sometimes the cruelty fixes what was broken."
He gave Rodney a searching look. "I suppose that I must be considered a mere sliver of a soul by your standards, if something is lost from both sex and negative actions."
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Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 7:20 pm
"A whole soul," Rodney said. "I don't know how to feel. I want you to be okay. I want...all the people you've hurt to be okay. I want...my mom and dad to be okay, but now they're dead too,"
He cried bitterly into his sleeve, stopping for a moment in their long and icy walk to the training fields, " and I've killed them."
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