[HH] Philandrapiths (Barth and Lawr)

[Baneful]

"Oh." he said. "I didn't ask in my first marriage. I've had three to date, but that one was my most naive one. I never asked questions, I avoided conflict, I wanted an easy life and assumed that logically she would want the same thing. But things fester and one day she and my son were just gone. Just like that, gone from my life which duly fell apart without the structure they represented.

"Nothing feels wrong to me. There's never some internal moral voice which makes me conscious of some greater facet of my shortcomings. I just avoid things which will end up in inconvenient results for myself. Rodney advised me that love is an action and actions are just rules. It is rules all the way down now, but at least rules I can try and obey, it makes as much sense as the whole morality fiasco."

"The garden came to an end just as every good thing does due to temptation. I just realise I don't need a demon to help me do it when it comes so easily to me instead. I'll ruin it one way or the other, and potentially the first step will simply be asking him if anything has been bothering him and explaining just how many things have been bothering me. It's simple enough to speak to you, I'd expect a demon to at the very least comprehend how it feels to sin."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"I'd imagine even your religious partner has his sinful inclinations. Everyone can be tempted. He's certainly done more than dip his toe in the water with you." Barth tsked. "Poor fellow. He must have been very pent up. But it's not very fair to impose all that coiled pressure on a friend."  

[Baneful]

"I don't think so." he said. "He's not sinful, he's almost without it. I can't think of a single time I've ever seen him do anything less than simply choose the right thing like it was easy. He's perfect, even his libido as high as it is, he was willing to choose chastity for ever without so much as a blink."

He exhaled wearily. "I don't know how such people can even exist."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Not forever, apparently," Barth clarified again. He was trying not to return to Lawrence's comments on his first marriage, which seemed about par for the course with him too, although when you spent all your time avoiding conflict you also missed opportunities to fight for something you...really, truly had wanted.

"Don't suppose you've tried lying?" He asked, "Very simple technique. I've personally had good results with it."  

[Baneful]

"Well that's true, not for ever. None of us exist for ever, but he certainly seems like he's going for a lifetime. Good for him really, there's no point in me dragging him down."

Barth got a long slow look as he asked about lying. "I'm very good at lying." he said. "He'd almost never know anything. It works, it has always worked, but people still left for other reasons. People feel lies, they feel them somewhere subconscious, somewhere beyond their awareness. Rodney might never find out and he might find out right away. I live in a very small very insular community but I could go off island all I wanted and do as I pleased. But this has always been an experiment, it is an experiment in honesty and trying things the way normal people do it. Going as well as I imagined it would."

He sighed. "I saw a world where I did everything I wanted for ever and at the end of it all I'd learned nothing and was nothing. I was hoping this way that there'd be something different, that by living the way someone as good as Rodney does that even if I don't end up in the same place I'd end up a better person. Lying is easy, this is a challenge, but maybe it is a challenge I can't handle."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Honesty and, err, goodness," Barth repeated incredulously, "I'm afraid that's a path that I err...can't help very much with. But I'm not much for challenges, either. Well, if it doesn't work out, you think your err, other friend will be alright with resuming things? I don't personally think there's anything particularly interesting at the end of either path, you know, good or evil, it all sort of turns out the same kind of way. He can't be happy living that way, can he? It's better to find your own sorts of goals. Both of you could benefit from a little less, rule-wise."  

[Baneful]

"Yes." Lawrence said exhaling. "It's a path that is difficult and not one I'm sure about or if I can do it." He looked uncomfortable at the prospect of Melvin. "I think my other friend would come right back to me, I think he'd want to pick things up again. But that's not what I want, I don't want a contingency, when you start making contingencies you've already given up on what you wanted."

He sat up, astride Barth's hips and sighed. "I don't know if he's happy that way, and his rules aren't the sort you can remove. They are psychological, built into his mind." He moved his hips slightly, more getting comfortable than attempting to tantalise in any way. "I would love there to be less rules."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"God's changed his mind along the way. Decided it was alright to eat anything you humans like, for instance. And there certainly aren't any prohibitions against polygamy. I'd say you were actually doing your first friend a disservice, with the abandoning and all. And the other's infidelity no matter which way you cut it. I think it must be more personal than rule-related, which, let's face it, are fairly loose in the first place. I imagine if you want to do some rule changing, it's his hearts that you'll need to appeal to. Or heart. ...However many he has."  

[Baneful]

"There aren't any prohibitions against polygamy but try telling him that, he acts like you've asked him to sign his soul away. He is very adamant about things being exactly a certain way, determined that his heart has told him that it should be that way, that he knows it. He acts like conceding even an inch would be as bad as death. It may not be biblical rules but they are rules nonetheless" He frowned. "And I know I did Melvin a disservice, he was loyal and loving, even after I cast him aside."

"I don't think there will be any convincing either of them, simply choosing one way or the other which I never wanted to do and don't enjoy dealing with at all. I'd rather they fought, I'd rather they lived in the same home as your partners do and bickered now and then than watch Melvin's potential drain away to nothing and watch Rodney be unhappy for the rest of the time that he's tethered to me. He's always sad you know, always. I hoped it might change after marriage, that maybe that was what he wanted or needed, but he always just feels upset with me and half the time I don't understand why."

It felt oddly freeing to be able to just rant at an impartial figure, to be able to talk out his problems without having to worry what the responses would be. The fact that Barth very clearly wasn't about to sleep with him either made it even less necessary to try to impress the demon, it didn't matter if he came across as entitled or whiny, neither thing was going to impact his present standing.

"Humans are difficult." he said. "And changing them is almost impossible."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Oh, creeple are open to things if they think it was their idea to begin with. But I know what you mean," Barth sighed, "at it all being so...difficult. Have they um, spent much time together? Your pair. Perhaps with err, a relaxing sort of...get together activity. Platonic. Unless things were looking the other way."

He looked a bit distant.

"I think err, all of us together...my two, I mean- in a non-platonic fashion, I feel as if...I might end up in quite a lot of peril."  

[Baneful]

"They don't like one another." he said grimly. "Rodney doesn't understand how Melvin interacts with me at all, he thinks Melvin wants to hurt me when ..er. There's a bit of that sort of thing that is acceptable, not actual harm you understand just." He distantly rubbed his throat with his hand. "Rodney can't abide violence, gets upset, cries, that sort of thing. In the same room Rodney would end up very upset and Melvin would get annoyed about it, it would end up in a huge fight and a lot of inconvenience."

At the very least it looked like the demon was in a similar situation. "You sound like you just chose multiple aggressive partners. I could live with that I think, I'm very hardy and capable of dealing with unruly aggressive types. Its the fearful ones I don't have the patience for. I was always the same with dogs too, pushy aggressive ones you could break, the fearful aggressive ones were no good at all, too risky and snappy. Rodney doesn't have a snapping point I think, I don't think he's harmed anything in his whole life. So no more of that sort of thing for me."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"That's certainly one way of putting it. I think these sort of things just...happen to me. For reasons err, yet undiscovered..."

It might have something to do with Barth's tolerance for just about everything.

"I don't mind fearful," Barth said with an amused tone.  

[Baneful]

"I can imagine." Lawrence said a little irritably. "I do. It gets me restless, I end up feeling like a cat with someone moving a string in front of it relentlessly. It agitates me. I prefer it when people are happy or content. I don't mind angry, I'm very resilient, I only draw the line at face strikes."

"I wouldn't be much fun overall for you I imagine however it went." he smirked and finally, reluctantly got off of Barth, standing up straight with a deft adjustment. "I don't really get scared of anything."

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Rather missing out on one of the best parts of humanity," Barth said, "you're all on the meaty side, but you have such wonderful ideas. Somewhere in that concoction of chemical and electrical signals is the strange ability to create."

Barth appraised Lawrence.

"I suppose I'll have to find my way back. ...But that seems like it would mean a lot of walking, doesn't it?"