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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"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?"

"No, I mean... how many friends do you think I have, John?"

She suspects his guess is much higher than the actual number!

"I don't know," he admits, "I know there's Natalie, and Pagan. The rest of your team. You haven't told me about anyone else."

"There's a few others here. But my point is, compared to all the people on the Barge, or in the world? I'm not exactly overflowing with caring feelings towards people."

"Why not?"

A pause before-

"I know there are plenty of assholes in the world. But mostly, people are just trying to be happy and they fuck up or get lost on the way or lash out because they're upset and they don't realize what they're doing."

"That has not been my experience with people," she says simply.

"How so?"

He pauses for a moment.

"It's not a test. I'm just trying to understand."

"In my experience, people are cruel," she says, lacing her fingers together over her soup bowl. "They're dismissive, they're judgmental. They're exclusionary."

"Oh," he says thoughtfully to that, watching her fingers.

"Here too?"

"Fewer here than at home. But for the most part, yes, here too."

"Do I act like that?"

It's an honest question.

"Sometimes." She pauses, then adds, "When you're cruel, it's usually more pointed."

Which, honestly, she thinks she prefers. If he can say or do something that she reads as pointedly cruel, then it means that, in theory, he knows her enough to know what will hurt - and you don't get to that point through apathy.

"You're not wrong," he agrees with her. He considers it.

"Is that why you're exclusionary? To kick people out before they kick you out?"

"I'm not exclusionary," she says, her eyebrow jumping. "That's ridiculous. I just-- I told you about most people feeling like cardboard to me, right?"

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