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 Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:31 am
Lawrence didn't complain about patrol assignments, it meant that it got him out of camp and away from work that might involve cleaning, scrubbing or bending a lot. Butch had mended the pain his back used to cause him but the memory of it remained and the habits he'd formed around not making it worse also still lingered. Walking was acceptable and given it was a forest, he didn't actually expect to run into anything much out there.
He waited by the sign for the camp for his assigned patrol partner, he hadn't even bothered to check who it was, it could have been anyone and he'd have dealt with it just the same, it was only a walk after all, once around the perimeter and back, something that might take an hour or two bur would also kill an hour or two.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:34 am
Malkam came around the trail, and stiffened up when he saw who was waiting on the other end.
Hunching his shoulders, he stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. It wasn't like it was a large group, either on the island or out here. Still, did it have to be Lawrence?
"Let's just get it over with," he said, storming past Lawrence and on down the path.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:38 am
Lawr didn't hurry, well aware that the rules stated rather clearly that patrols had to be groups of two or more and that without him Malkam would be on his own and in contravention of the rules. He had no reason to hurry, so he didn't. Still, he wasn't sure how he felt about being assigned the boy, already aware of how little liked he was.
"There's no reason to be so surly." he said, and thought to himself how much Malkam's sulking reminded him of Leif and his nonsense.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:49 am
"Yeah well, I bet you're pretty happy having the house to yourself with what's-his-name. We're fine, thanks. And not living in the basement, not that you care."
Everything Lawrence said just pissed him off.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:53 am
"Rodney. And no actually, I was rather content with the way things were before with a bustling and happy household. It's a little too quiet now." He didn't want or expect sympathy but he frankly saw no reason to lie to Malkam. He took a deep breath and exhaled in a sigh.
"There is little point in me saying that I do care because it is something you long ago made your mind up about, possibly before you even met me."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:02 am
"Yeah, none of those things are your fault, again. Your house is empty because you cheated, and then kicked us out. And I made up my mind because I met you, and because of what you did. What you keep doing. You're just a rotten person."
Malkam couldn't believe he was still pulling that I'm the victim stuff.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:10 am
Lawrence didn't leap to his own defence, in fact he didn't defend himself at all. He was a rotten person, that had been established on various occasions and in various worlds.
"I resolved to be better." he said. "It was why I built the house at all in the first place. I was trying to distance myself from unpleasant things and stop the self-perpetuating cycle. It obviously didn't work, I even managed to stay as loyal to Melvin as he wanted for a year, with permission for flings if you really must know. I didn't plan for things to go the way they did and I accept that any number of things, collaterally and directly have been my fault that were awful."
He shrugged. "It is difficult to make significant alterations when people around me tell me I am simply a horrible person and not ways to even begin to change or at least control that."
"As for throwing you out, it was obviously what you wanted. You said innumerable times you were there only for Mikael, so I gave you him, since you were so much better than me."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:23 am
Malkam rolled his eyes. "Sure, that's all about you."
How was he even related to someone this whiny and selfish?
"You want to know how a person with morals would have done it? Okay, sure. They wouldn't have had their side piece promise their kid that they wouldn't be kicked out of their home, then kick them out anyway. They wouldn't have made them leave with just as much as they could fit into a suitcase. You know his art matters to him. Your stuff matters to you. They wouldn't have taken their kid's wages. They wouldn't have taken their ex...boyfriend's wages, and kept that when they got rid of them. If you want to...mess around with other people, you break up. You should have broken up with Melvin before, but he's...also, a rotten person, so maybe he deserves it. They don't give their boyfriends...access to their kids...you know what he did to Mik? What he tried to do? Do you care about any of it?"
They didn't kill their daughters, he thought over and over angrily.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:42 am
"Everything is only about me." Lawrence said slowly and patiently. "Because my only point of empathy with the world is inside my own head."
Regardless, he listened to the young man tell him that he'd have had Lawrence's life all nice and sorted out with everyone in neat little deserving moral pockets of suffering and that because he had done so that it was all fair.
He was planning to say simply that all of those things would have been great but were more complicated than he knew when Malkam stated something that made his blood turn to ice and for Butch to start awake and snarl menacingly.
"Access?" he said carefully, the concern evident. "What did he do to Mikael?" and in a spike of startlingly stark impatience against the backdrop of calm switched to Swedish urgently.
// "Tell me." // he said.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:49 am
, Malkam answered peevishly.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 5:54 am
Lawrence had a lack of self control but it took quite a significant impinging on his sense of personal pride and possessions to really get the restlessness up to a point where he was angry. Butch responded to those moments as if they were facing an imminent threat.
There was a twist of chains and blue light and the formerly one-handed man was sporting a set of two large and lethal talons that went all the way up to his shoulders.
//"He /felt/ him up?!"// he hissed. //"I had NO IDEA any of this was going on."// and it made him feel like a fool, of course Melvin would have been hitting on the younger, more vigorous model rather than him. He deserved everything that had happened to him indeed. //"Did Mikael tell you this? I should have gotten rid of Melvin while I was inclined to DO SO."//
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:05 am
Malkam stumbled back on the trail, eyes wide, not used to seeing Lawrence care about anything that happened to anybody.
"Y-yeah," He answered, looking at the weapons, which extended all the way up Lawrence's arms and out and out and out. It looked like he had an array of long blades, and a wicked looking chain strung between them. A twisted mockery of sharp teeth were lodged in the armor. What was it? How strong was he? Malkam clutched the ring on his hand to his chest.
he said,
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:20 am
"I didn't hate him." Lawrence said absolutely furious. "But I do now. I was just being used as much as I was using anyone, he was probably at it the whole time at the house. Ill kill him I'll report him....I'll" and he trailed off.
"Ten swords." He said suddenly derailed, looking at his claws. " they are claws but.."
That damned tarot card had been following him for months, years. And now in this moment he realised what it meant. "Do you know anything about tarot?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:41 am
Malkam asked finally, still thrown off by the weapon.
He looked at the swords, not sure if this was a trick question.
"N-no," he said.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:46 am
"Of course I do!" Lawrence said exasperated. "My children are my children!" Only he was permitted to mistreat them because he knew how to do it correctly. "And the ten of swords is the single worst card in the deck and it haunts me. Only now I see WHY."
And he pointed his talons back at the camp. "When we get back there I am going to kill him. Did he ******** him? Is He infected?!" And it genuinely looked like lawr had every intention of it, Butch's runes blazing.
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