< i would make a better liar >
written May 20, 2024 8:02:23 GMT
frog on the floor
aliasfreiheit, microwaved burrito
pronounsany
1,518written posts
pharaoh leapearned bits
offlinecurrently
pharaoh leap
Administrator
i've been having some pretty dark thoughts.
[nospaces] [attr="class","sumreign"] [attr="class","sumreign-triangle"] [attr="class","sumreign-1"] [attr="class","sumreign-img"] [attr="class","sumreign-num"] [attr="class","th th-sun"] .29 [attr="class","sumreign-prompt"] coming home [attr="class","sumreign-lyrics"] what you wanted is coming true. ( i want it, too. ) โWhat'll you do when we win?โ[break][break] He crooks a brow at you. It hovers at odds with the mirthful twitch of the corner of his lips, the betraying echo of the smile he can't fully relinquish even as he plays at pessimism. โ'When'? Awfully confident of you. Tell me this isn't how I discover you've been failing to plan for contingencies.โ[break][break] A year of history together isn't all you need to see the blatant deflection for what it is โ though it does help, having experienced first hand the genuine discomfort the Doctor seems to experience when dragged by the teeth into conversations that involve revealing anything about the self. But his fight, your fight, isn't one placed on the edge of a fist without the belief in assured victory. ( At least, that's what you'd have yourself think. ) So you haul yourself up onto the guardrail, weight shifted to your arms, and kick him bratily in his over-priced pants.[break][break] โJust answer the question, asshole. I wanna know.โ[break][break] The brow settles. Furrows. Any vestige of that hard-fought laughter from just a moment ago has been sacrificed in the name of your curiosity, and you'd almost feel bad about it, were you not leaning over the precipice of an honest answer.[break][break] Ever since that first day, waging your life for the mere opportunity to stand as a foot soldier in X's holy war against corrupt society, there's existed within you the undeniable desire to dig deep, deeper, carve your way to something resembling human past the exterior of something deific. To both revere the man before you as something above humanity, and to find some shard of yourself reflect within him. Every look inside his mind beyond the mission is like another shaving off the facade. Imagining him beyond the mission, somewhere in that far flung future... to hear what that imagine looks like from his own mouth... Well. Maybe you ought to remember to let go of that breath you've been holding.[break][break] The expectations all come crumbling down anyway. โI'm... not sure,โ the Doctor confesses. He gives his weight up to the parallel wall, looking thoughtful, bothered maybe, even as he admits a rare defeat. โIt's not something I let myself think about. Better to spend that time worrying about the moment.โ[break][break] โYou don't gotta answer with the whole rest of your life,โ you press. Can't even reach him with the toe of your boot from here; the petulance is going to start seeping out of your tone at this rate. โYou could just say you're gonna eat a cheeseburger or some shit.โ[break][break] โI understand. But I can't imagine you'd be satisfied with an answer I've pulled out of thin air on the spot, either. Or would you tell me I'm wrong?โ[break][break] He has you there. ( Really, though, where doesn't he? ) Frustratingly, you're forced to change tactics. โOkay, okay. How 'bout I tell you what I think you'll do?โ[break][break] โBy all means.โ[break][break] โRight. So first of all, you're gonna be president, obviously.โ[break][break] โObviously,โ he agrees, eyes crinkling in amused delight.[break][break] โPass all those laws an' shit to kick out the old, make room for the new. I'm sure you've got it all figured out.โ A hum, which is close enough to assent for you. โGo up to those UN or NATO or whatever guys and give 'em a big speech on how to suck less. I mean, at that point, they'll have a good idea of what it means to mess with us, so even if they don't agree, no way anyone's dumb enough to pick a fight over it. Obviously.โ[break][break] โObviously.โ[break][break] โThen you celebrate the fastest presidential retirement ever and come back to Seattle.โ[break][break] This, more than the implication of thinly veiled threats to the United Nations, seems to catch your boss's attention. โI'm not going to remain in power?โ[break][break] โNah,โ you say, nonchalant, crossing a heel over the knee for added lack of affect. โYour work'll be done, remember? Harlequin can be president instead.โ[break][break] The Doctor laughs โ really laughs โ loud, and sudden enough that it seems to almost take himself by surprise. โHarlequin, hn?โ he asks through lingering chuckles. โNot who I would have thought, but far be it from me to question my dear diviner.โ Tilting his head, he adds, โAnd if I don't remain in a seat of power, pray tell, what will I be doing with all my spare time?โ[break][break] Deadpan, without missing a beat: โCat grooming.โ Obviously.[break][break] The second round of comedy does not catch him nearly so off guard, but the humor isn't lost on him, deathly allergic to the felines who so love him as he is. His shoulders quake. โI supposed if one life's passion does not do me in, it's only right for the next to finish the job.โ[break][break] Spoken in your best posh impression, you preach, โ'To reach utopia of the mind, Nikki, you must learn the art of sacrifice.'โ You're mocking him with his own voice, however tilted, an over-the-top echo of something he'd told you very early on into your work as his personal assassin. You should expect that he might pull the same on you... but you don't until it's happening, his own heavy accent suddenly absent from his voice when he next opens his mouth.[break][break] โDunno, Doc, didn't think 'utopia' was s'posed to have this many cats in it.โ[break][break] Distantly, you recognize your jaw has dropped and the back of your throat is sitting wide open for any unruly fly to make its home in, but that hardly matters to you now. X doesn't do impressions. Neither do you, really, but โ have you struck some sort of topical gold? How bizarre to hear that voice from him, even if you really don't sound or talk like that at all... obviously.[break][break] Before you can push whatever advantage may be there, though, he's pushing off the far wall, cutting the distance between you and holding out an arm. โEnough dawdling, though. Let's return to the base, before we're seen.โ[break][break] Right. Tonight's hit had gone off without a hitch, especially with the revolutionary leader there to ensure things went smoothly and Lydian's insistence she stay behind to double check for any loose ends. ( If you were less clueless, it'd have been easy to put together that she was already sick of listening to the two of you banter before the mission had even begun. ) This was the part where you'd return to that little hole-in-the-wall of a coffee shop to debrief, early into the morning, but the one you would normally debrief to was taking the lead. Muscle memory, then. Coming home after a long day's work. If only there weren't the need to keep their heads low, for the sake of reputation and the sake of the future.[break][break] โWhat about you?โ[break][break] Your feet make landing once again. โWhat about me?โ you ask.[break][break] โWhat would you like to do? 'When we win'.โ[break][break] And this is it, one of infinite differences between you: X considers the immediate dangers, the plays upon a mental chessboard with which to circumvent them; and all the while, you live with one foot in the factual and another in the realm of possibility. One thousand days you've spent imagining your life with Sister Mary when the wicked priest is dead and gone. One thousand days you've spent wondering about this very conversation.[break][break] To answer is to open a vulnerability in yourself to scrutiny โ but with him, you've done that one thousand times. โI wanna go somewhere together. You an' me, even if everyone can see us.โ Because everyone could see you. Let this hidden thing be a secret no longer. Let the world see your god parade you on his arm. You'll call him by a new name, the one he's never told you, and you'll make him laugh like tonight again and again and again...[break][break] โI think โ I just wanna be where you are.โ[break][break] Obviously.[break][break] But the Doctor is uncannily quiet, first for a forgivable moment, and then for many unforgivable more. You're unsure if the pace he's set for the remainder of your walk home has quickened, or if that's only the thunderous beating of your heart in your chest. Have you said too much? Dammit, you can salvage this if only you play right your cards. Return to that jovial place of cats and comedy and โ[break][break] โ and the look on his face says more than his words could, revealing to you that glimpse to his inner world you failed to find before. When he speaks, you don't even think the words are for you.[break][break] โI want that, too.โ [attr="class","sumreign-triangle-1"] [googlefont=Abril+Fatface:400,700] [googlefont=Open+Sans:400,700] [googlefont=Oranienbaum:400,700] [newclass=.sumreign]margin:30px 0px;border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;padding:34px;width:501px;background-color:#f5f5f5;background-image:url(https://i.ibb.co/BVnmNrf/scanlineshorizontal2.png);[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-triangle]height:250px;width:250px;background-color:#999999;position:absolute;margin:-35px;clip-path: polygon(0 0, 0 100%, 100% 0);[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-triangle div]height:250px;width:250px;background-image:url(https://i.ibb.co/BVnmNrf/scanlineshorizontal2.png);[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-1]border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;background-color:#f5f5f5;position:relative;z-index:1;text-align:justify;font:11px Open Sans;color:#444444;padding:64px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-1 h1]margin:0px;height:1px;background-color:#dddddd;margin:20px 35px 35px 35px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-1 font]font-weight:700!important;color:#999999;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-img]width:100px;float:right;height:175px;margin-left:20px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-img img]height:175px;width:100px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-num]font:150px Abril Fatface;color:#f5f5f5;text-shadow:.75px .75px 0px #cccccc, .75px 0px 0px #cccccc, 0px .75px 0px #cccccc, -.75px 0px 0px #cccccc, 0px -.75px 0px #cccccc, -.75px .75px 0px #cccccc, .75px -.75px 0px #cccccc, -.75px -.75px 0px #cccccc;line-height:100px;letter-spacing:9px;margin-left:-20px;text-align:right;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-num div]position:absolute;text-shadow:none!important;color:#999999;font-size:75px!important;margin:-5px 0px 0px 10px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-prompt]background-color:#999999;background-image:url(https://i.ibb.co/BVnmNrf/scanlineshorizontal2.png);margin-right:130px;margin-top:35px;font:bold 11px Open Sans;line-height:10px;height:10px;padding:15px 12px 15px 15px;letter-spacing:3px;text-align:center;color:#f5f5f5;text-transform:uppercase;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-lyrics]color:#bbbbbb;font:14px Oranienbaum;letter-spacing:4px;line-height:15px;margin:35px 0px 30px 0px;border:solid 1px #e5e5e5;background-color:#f5f5f5;background-image:url(https://i.ibb.co/BVnmNrf/scanlineshorizontal2.png);padding:55px 65px;[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-triangle-1]height:125px;width:125px;transform:rotate(180deg);background-color:#999999;position:absolute;margin:-90px 0px 0px 411px;clip-path: polygon(0 0, 0 100%, 100% 0);[/newclass] [newclass=.sumreign-triangle-1 div]height:250px;width:250px;background-image:url(https://i.ibb.co/BVnmNrf/scanlineshorizontal2.png);[/newclass] |
last edit on May 20, 2024 8:03:19 GMT by pharaoh leap