greatoldjohn | TLV Inbox

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[in a rather deep voice] "This is John Doe. Please leave your message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I may respond in text if I'm currently with Arthur. Apologies."

Now Moved To: Inbox: Act II - please tag in there!

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...I never intended on asking you to leave.

[ He's not cruel like that, Misty. Cruel sometimes, yes. But... never planned. ]

How are you doing?

She doesn't know how to even begin to answer that, so she doesn't at first, taking the time instead to lift the bowl of broth to her lips and take a long sip.

"Not great, obviously, but I'm not going to fall apart," she finally says, calmly.

"That's about where I am," he admits tiredly. "And worried. About Natalie. You. Arthur."

A pause.

"Pissed off at the fucker who did it. Not that it makes any difference."

"She'll be okay," Misty says, to herself as much as to him, darting out a hand to wrap her fingers loosely around Natalie's forearm. "She'd say she's survived worse."

"That doesn't make it all right," he says firmly. "For either of you. For anyone."

"Well, I didn't say it was all right."

Her gaze turns flinty, but though she's talking to John and looking at Natalie, the hardness isn't directed at either of them.

"I could destroy him. He wouldn't see me coming."

People generally don't.

"It won't unkill her," he points out.

"And if you got hurt in doing it, Natalie would be beside herself." A pause. "She worries about you."

"I think there's a good chance I could do something to him without dying. That's where him not seeing me coming comes in."

But a good chance is not a surety.

"To what end, Misty? What would be the point?"

He's angry, don't get him wrong. But he doesn't see how it will help anything even if she accomplishes it.

"Personal satisfaction."

She enunciates each syllable, stroking her thumb over Natalie's arm in time with her speech.

"And would it still satisfy you if Natalie didn't want it?"

"Let's not talk about it," she suggests. "It was just a passing thought."

"Ah."

Yeah, that's probably for the best.

"Fair enough."

He's silent for a moment before he realizes that, well, he hasn't had the chance to talk to Arthur, probably won't, but- he would like to know.

"...why did you apologize to Arthur?"

Genuinely curious and very much unsure.

"Um, because I shot him," she says, her brow furrowing. "And because he gave me one first."

"Oh."

That has him considering.

"...is that what you wanted from me? An apology?"

"Do you want to give me one?" she asks, looking up with surprised interest.

"Not really," he admits, because he doesn't. He considers it a little harder.

"The only thing I'm really sorry about is when I said I regretted having you as a friend, especially since I said it to hurt you. And I already apologized for that.

"It would feel a little cheap to use it to get an apology from you."

"That's what I thought you'd say," she says with a shrug. "And I'd still rather have a discussion. But apparently, it's not right to expect that of you, no matter what my intentions are."

...he's too exhausted to get mad. This is a good time.

"What were your intentions?"

A pause.

"You might have said them before, but I also might not have been in a good place to hear them."

"To work through it together," Misty says, sounding more than a little tired herself. "Like a team."

He's quiet for a moment.

"I think that felt unfair," he says slowly, working through it himself, "because I didn't feel like you had treated me like a team mate. So asking me to work with you as a team meant I had to do the work of a team mate, but I wasn't getting the consideration of one. All the disadvantages, and none of the benefits."

A pause.

"I don't think you meant it to be, but it felt exploitative."

"Well, that's kind of what Pagan said," she says. "But I think caring enough to want to rehash it all with you was consideration."

That's the first time he's going to say-

"I would disagree," he says, but his tone stays quiet, as much for Misty as Natalie, "I feel caring should be the baseline requirement for friendship. That's what makes it friendship, instead of two people existing in the same space. You don't get special points for caring. In this case especially, I was the one giving you more consideration, because you're the one who was shitty to me and hurt my- hurt us."

Edited 2022-12-13 14:04 (UTC)

"Well, in my case, it does feel special."

She takes another long sip of broth.

"I don't feel that way about many people. It's not a baseline for me."

"So there's friends you have that you don't care about?" More disconnects. Some part of him knew this but it all seems so anathema to someone who cares so intensely about some people.

"What makes them friends?"

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