[In more ways than simple avoidance. He turns a chair and drags it with it's legs complaining from the friction with the floor to drop it at angles next to her and sit. He reaches for the butchers meat, unpicking the tape holding the soggy paper with blunt fingernails.]
So why, exactly, are you so afraid of me?
[He takes the wrist holding the fork and guides it into clearing space on the plate, onto which he deposits the meat, matter-of-factly, watery blood and all.]
[She's silent for a moment, fixated on the steak once more, jarred from the weak comfort she had been taking from being able to eat.]
When have I ever been afraid of you.
[She doesn't think it's him that frightens her. She sets the fork down, toying the meat up in her fingers, leaning forward to tear off a piece with her teeth. It's never really him, the fear is always of herself; her reactions to familiar things, her weaknesses. (You sound like him sometimes, especially when you're being haughty.) She swallows without chewing much.]
[And it's not a haughty response, it's just all he's been able to come up with. And no, perhaps not him precisely, but whatever it is he's come to represent. Or what he could.]
You'd rather go to some backwoods underground surgeon than let me know what you've done to yourself. Rather do that to yourself than talk to me about it. You're keeping me at arms length from what you are.
[He crumples the soiled paper on one hand, rolling it across the table.]
You wanted to sleep with me because you think we have the same classification system when it comes to sex. Maybe I'd lose interest.
[She continues staring down at the plate, tilting her head at the food like it's changed form and she doesn't really recognize what it is anymore.]
Maybe.
[She can agree to all of that, it's not really untrue. She begins to poke lethargically at a pile of noodles with her fingertips.]
I'd call it convenience.
[It had all spared her feeling vulnerable, at the time, but that feeling always returns to her. She never really addresses it, just slathers it over with something else until her head is unbearable again.]
[At the far end of the large table, there's a ceramic bowl filed with miscellaneous junk. A place to throw keys, rubber bands, toothpicks, receipts, whatever else. She leans forward to pull it towards herself, sorting through for a pair of kitchen shears which are summarily taken to that piece of steak to hack it down into approximately (large) bite-sized pieces.]
Of course I'm not.
[She was Barbet's unwanted burden, his regret, his responsibility to be suffered until the end. An end he'd insisted had to be on his terms and not her own. She puts the scissors down irritably. She was the undead wretch with no claim to anything in life, let alone one of her own. She had been convenient to Blonde, a place to live and a place to lay low, company in bed and a confidant with more secrets than he had. She misses him. She's tired of it. That was why she had left Chase and his prying to black it all out instead; the latter was far more convenient to her. Cheap and easy, and ultimately unsatisfying. She picks up one of the pieces she's cubed, presses into her mouth without any particular relish.]
[There's nothing like a self-destructive mind to take a meaning and warp it until it suits, until it reaffirms the worthlessness that's already become pattern to it. Chase can follow the process as if it's visible in synaptic flashes across her face.]
You go out and make yourself convenient to half the city. [He's not blind.] It's remarkably obliging. And you get them to confirm exactly what you're good for. Which is exactly why I had no intention of having sex with you.
[It's why he'd resisted the dubious charms of her younger self, and why this odd back and forth between them had come to blows and kisses more than once, but no further.]
There's nothing wrong with you except not being somebody else. And the only one in this place who knows that, is you.
I don't predicate my self-worth on sex, don't be fucking ridiculous.
[Except when Barbet is involved, when he won't let her touch him at all and it's just one more way he chained her up and isolated from her own humanity and then somehow expected her to keep it.]
No, your own opinions have nothing to do with how you like people to treat you.
[It's not just the sex. The two casts she's locked into make their own point, and after making his Chase rests his elbow on the table, heels of his hands pushed against his eyes it some attempt to feel less weary of all of this.]
[Yes, that's one of the stock responses, he keeps it easily at hand.]
I spent five years trying to save someone hellbent on destroying herself. [For the women: it's not so far off.] Eventually, I figured it might be a relief to treat people who wanted the help.
I thought I had nothing left, for a long time. [It had made the priesthood a terrible calling, but still, for a time, preferable to trying on his father's shoes.]
I was wrong, but there's a limit. So, if you want to kill yourself, kill yourself. I'm not stopping you. I'm not going to help you, either. That way you don't get to blame me if you go through with it and realise how badly you've screwed yourself getting another wish granted with a lifetime of never quite being dead enough.
[He stands as he speaks, clearing away the emptied bags, the take-out carton. Such a domestic scene.]
[Several variations of answers run through her mind, various ways to correct the idiocy of those statements, but she just gives up. It doesn't matter. She's already been through grieving over never getting her end game here, it had been a quieter affair than losing Blonde.]
Fine.
[Isn't that what she's been telling him to do for months, anyway.]
[He's come to tell her he can't care about her if she's going to do this. (Come to tell her, by insinuation, that it's too late for him already). Now he's eating her food and not even wincing. There's ample space for confusion here.]
Get used to, or prefer it? I brought it over on a guess.
[She's just as bad. If she really wanted him gone, she wouldn't have called. If she weren't just as infatuated as she is resentfully fearful, she wouldn't want his attention at all.]
...sometimes both.
[Zombie comfort food? On a better day it might have even gotten her to say thank you. Today, she's just forced to recognize him as her provisioner of food yet again and to watch his mouth with fascination.]
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Re: ☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[As demonstrated.]
You'll ignore me.
[In more ways than simple avoidance. He turns a chair and drags it with it's legs complaining from the friction with the floor to drop it at angles next to her and sit. He reaches for the butchers meat, unpicking the tape holding the soggy paper with blunt fingernails.]
So why, exactly, are you so afraid of me?
[He takes the wrist holding the fork and guides it into clearing space on the plate, onto which he deposits the meat, matter-of-factly, watery blood and all.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
When have I ever been afraid of you.
[She doesn't think it's him that frightens her. She sets the fork down, toying the meat up in her fingers, leaning forward to tear off a piece with her teeth. It's never really him, the fear is always of herself; her reactions to familiar things, her weaknesses. (You sound like him sometimes, especially when you're being haughty.) She swallows without chewing much.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[And it's not a haughty response, it's just all he's been able to come up with. And no, perhaps not him precisely, but whatever it is he's come to represent. Or what he could.]
You'd rather go to some backwoods underground surgeon than let me know what you've done to yourself. Rather do that to yourself than talk to me about it. You're keeping me at arms length from what you are.
[He crumples the soiled paper on one hand, rolling it across the table.]
You wanted to sleep with me because you think we have the same classification system when it comes to sex. Maybe I'd lose interest.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
Maybe.
[She can agree to all of that, it's not really untrue. She begins to poke lethargically at a pile of noodles with her fingertips.]
I'd call it convenience.
[It had all spared her feeling vulnerable, at the time, but that feeling always returns to her. She never really addresses it, just slathers it over with something else until her head is unbearable again.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
On my part, maybe. When have you ever been convenient?
[His fingers steeple and twist, any attempt to occupy them.]
I'm sorry if I let you think for a moment that you were.
[It's a compliment, in a strange way.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
Of course I'm not.
[She was Barbet's unwanted burden, his regret, his responsibility to be suffered until the end. An end he'd insisted had to be on his terms and not her own. She puts the scissors down irritably. She was the undead wretch with no claim to anything in life, let alone one of her own. She had been convenient to Blonde, a place to live and a place to lay low, company in bed and a confidant with more secrets than he had. She misses him. She's tired of it. That was why she had left Chase and his prying to black it all out instead; the latter was far more convenient to her. Cheap and easy, and ultimately unsatisfying. She picks up one of the pieces she's cubed, presses into her mouth without any particular relish.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
You go out and make yourself convenient to half the city. [He's not blind.] It's remarkably obliging. And you get them to confirm exactly what you're good for. Which is exactly why I had no intention of having sex with you.
[It's why he'd resisted the dubious charms of her younger self, and why this odd back and forth between them had come to blows and kisses more than once, but no further.]
There's nothing wrong with you except not being somebody else. And the only one in this place who knows that, is you.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
I don't predicate my self-worth on sex, don't be fucking ridiculous.
[Except when Barbet is involved, when he won't let her touch him at all and it's just one more way he chained her up and isolated from her own humanity and then somehow expected her to keep it.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[It's not just the sex. The two casts she's locked into make their own point, and after making his Chase rests his elbow on the table, heels of his hands pushed against his eyes it some attempt to feel less weary of all of this.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[Because when it comes to most people, she couldn't really care less what they respond to her with.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[The people aren't important, it's how they act.
He even sounds tired. But he pushes his hands up enough to look at her, fingers carding through thick blond.]
Remember asking me why I became a doctor?
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
No. But I remember you telling me it was for the women, once.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
I spent five years trying to save someone hellbent on destroying herself. [For the women: it's not so far off.] Eventually, I figured it might be a relief to treat people who wanted the help.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
I'm sure it was.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
I was wrong, but there's a limit. So, if you want to kill yourself, kill yourself. I'm not stopping you. I'm not going to help you, either. That way you don't get to blame me if you go through with it and realise how badly you've screwed yourself getting another wish granted with a lifetime of never quite being dead enough.
[He stands as he speaks, clearing away the emptied bags, the take-out carton. Such a domestic scene.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
Fine.
[Isn't that what she's been telling him to do for months, anyway.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
He leans across the table from the opposite end and steals one small, bloody chunk, tentatively testing it between blunt teeth.]
Could use some capers.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
You'd get used to it.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
Get used to, or prefer it? I brought it over on a guess.
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
...sometimes both.
[Zombie comfort food? On a better day it might have even gotten her to say thank you. Today, she's just forced to recognize him as her provisioner of food yet again and to watch his mouth with fascination.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[Or he can visit. Sometimes both. Fresh, raw steak isn't exactly exotic food to him, Carla. Chew and swallow.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[She presses one of the cubes to her own lips thoughtfully. Or maybe it's just to hide the half-smile that's fitted there.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[That much he can play along with. And he'll keep stealing from her plate, a few stray noodles this time.]
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[Aka 'you still promised me dinner.']
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
[I know.
He leans back, looking through into the invalid's resting area that is the next room.]
Reckon there's a game on?
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Re: ☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
☏ courtesies that i disguise in me
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