intheblanks | ➹BEEPER

[Everyone he knows in this city last knew him three years ago - back when he was a completely different person. He could write a book on not knowing where he stands.]

I don't think you'd find many people who'd feel the same way as you do, about who you were before. People who don't want to see you tearing yourself apart now— but that's not the same thing.

[He lifts his chin, enough to look up at her.]

Have you tried asking?

No one ever did. It didn't bother me until it was Barbet.

[She glances back at Chase reluctantly.]

It bothers me that I still need that.

[So, no, she doesn't really ask. Except with Saya who might be the worst possible resource in this situation.]

[Saya is brutal, honest or not. And she's many other things Chase wouldn't like to have to define.

Comforting? Perhaps only to him.]

Is that why you make it so hard for anyone to know what you want.

Beyond sex, what do they need to know about it.

[It might be a legitimate question, even if she won't phrase it like one.]

And you wonder why I don't sleep with you.

[Don't mention when the resolve slips. It does take resolve.

He shifts from his seat, running shoes scratching against the sandy steps as he turns to kneel on the one below, facing her.]

Because sex, enjoyable as it is, is a cheap fix. And if you do it often enough, with enough people, you kill off the few chemical elements that relate it to bonding, and it starts being a way to distance yourself, instead. Nobody in their right mind wants to do that with someone they care about.

You asked me if I liked almonds. You have some idea what it's like to want to know more about a person than what they can do with their tongue.

I don't wonder. But I can differentiate between a recreation and an investment.

[An investment of what? Her head tilts slowly, eyes drifting off. Time, attention, maybe emotion. Respect was the most likely culprit, actually.]

And I only asked you that because I was cursed.

You only asked me because you were cursed. But you weren't cursed to want to know.

[He tugs down on a corner of his mouth, catching lip between teeth.]

Not wanting to need anyone in your life doesn't make you look strong. It makes you look scared.

I am scared.

[There you are.]

I know.

[He reaches for her hands as he sits down beside her again, shoulder-bumping.]

The only people who aren't are idiots.

Or they don't have a reason to be.

[Because she's always clinging to that. That she can find that reason (She can hurt herself far worse than anyone else can, that's safety, right? That's bravery, right?) Her mouth twists, hands twisting uncomfortably under his too.]

I'm not one of them.

[She bites that out perfunctorily, an admission that disgusts her absolutely.]

[Everyone who has ever cared and lost has a reason to be. Chase has had reasons since his dad walked out. Since he watched his mother, jaundiced and soaked in sweat and bile, maddened and dying. He's a few reasons to be.

Granted, none of them ever shot him in the head, or rebuilt him afterwards. He's always done the rebuild alone.

He keeps her hands, gently, sliding a palm up her wrist, but not to test how cold she is. Not, even habitually, in search of a pulse. It's not distance.]

You know, intentionally or not, you might have given yourself a second chance.

[She's not used to loss. Her only experience had been with Barbet, a deep cut opening up a great fear. Then more had followed here, and every time she struggled to comprehend how anything could hurt so much when she didn't want it to. When she didn't even want to believe in those sorts of emotions, like she could exclude them by will. She can't.

She's staring intensely at where his hand is, frowning and shoulders tense.]

I know. The serpent said the same thing. [Here's another quote:] I should expect that a quasi-successful suicide in the City is going to render null and void your ladybird self-abasement contract. Have some of the marzipan.

[Truthfully, if he's thinking about it, Chase might notice that she's turned to quoting others twice now. A simple avoidancy tactic that takes pressure off of her to voice her own messy thoughts. The dead girl had done it often.]

Not what I meant. Your contract with anything at home could have been voided when you got here, as soon as you let it be. I meant—

[His hand is in her lap, arm over her knee, a little more so when he leans in, leg against hers. He does hesitate, a moment, over phrasing. She's too keen to take her own meaning to suit her and leave the rest - storing these quotes like a dictionary.]

Whatever you did, here, there was always the chance you'd walk through a door tomorrow and be back in the middle of everything you got away from. That can be a barrier to anyone starting again. It's different, for the dead, here.

[No chance of being whisked back to where they were. There are two viewpoints.

If you're dead, you're stuck here.

If you're dead, you get to stay.]

It removes some of the risk.

I don't want to go back.

[Honestly, she's asking his permission to think of it like that. She's not sure she can, but... She could try.]

Neither do I.

[Still there are things he only tells her.]

But you'd go.

[Because you're a ridiculous goody-two shoes. She edges her hands away.]

Maybe.

[And the maybe is honest. There's nothing at home but a job and various people whose lives he only makes harder. The thought hasn't driven him off a cliff edge yet, but maybe.

If this place came up with a better reason to stay. Maybe.]

Why does what I'd do matter?

It doesn't. You brought yourself into it.

[And it's easier to talk about him than it is to talk about her.]

[Though he has to concede the point.]

As a means of sticking around, what you did could actually gain some perspective.

[Instead of being only mad, mindless, self-destructive. He's a diagnostician, he lives in hope of finding reason.]

A perspective besides my self-indulgence.

[That's flat, and she's watching the ship bob, mouth thin.]

Yes.

[Simply.]

Sounds like a nice lie.

We all need a few of those. [He looks down at his hands, splaying the palms out across his bent knees. Frowns.] Are they gritty?

Being in love was a nice lie too.

[She glances at him, looking confused. Gritty?]

Not sure that was the lie.

[He looks up, catching the expression.]

My hands. Are they gritty? Scratchy with sand?

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