[IC Inbox | Meadowlark]

[lifetothefullest]

@lance.sweets | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

Comments

[evocation]

So you wouldn't talk to him, is what you're saying.

[lifetothefullest]

Considering where talking to him has gotten me, that seems like the wise choice.

[It's flat and not without some level of annoyance, though he offers soon after--]

Maybe, if I was feeling particularly patient, I would've asked if he wanted to have a conversation or just be insulting and then give him a chance to choose the former.

[But he doesn't think he would've been feeling particularly patient if Akechi had been talking about one of his friends like that, and then having the conversation he'd had with Ian with another friend as well.]

[evocation]

I know what you mean, but... The way Nate handled it only made things worse. The same thing happened with Rey and Yennefer and Ian. And I've been seeing people try those same things over and over with him since I got here. That's why I tried something different, and when I was talking to him later, when I told him to lay off the insults, he didn't react to me the same way he did with everyone else. I don't know if he's actually going to listen, but we had an actual conversation where we were disagreeing and he wasn't shouting me down.

[She thinks the lecturing is probably the difference. Nate telling him to "chill" and "take a walk", Dean doing his Dean thing, she can see how that would just read as condescending to him and make him even more aggressive. She was never quite as acerbic as Akechi, but in her angriest periods, those reactions would have made her shut down, too.]

He's just a kid, and he's important to Ren. They've had a really rough time at home and here. It feels weird to just write him off, you know?

[lifetothefullest]

So he decided not to be entirely horrible to you because you gave him what he wanted.

[He knows better than to say it, but a brief flash of anger and other more deep-seated and difficult emotions he doesn't want to work with prompts him to do so anyway; his voice is cold more than anything else as he continues.]

If that's how you'd like to deal with him, then that's your choice.

[But he's not in the habit of doing that; not anymore, anyway, now that he can make that choice. He sets his glass on the counter and picks up his jacket again.]

I'm going for a walk.

[Which may or may end with him returning any time soon.]

[evocation]

You know, everyone always gives me shit for not being able to handle crap, but in the past few days, it's been everyone else shutting down on me.

[If he was expecting a more aggressive version of Kyna, like the one he saw frequently back in Hadriel, now he gets it. It feels like he's doing that condescending thing again, like she's being treated like an idiot. She stands up, making an impulsive grab for the jacket.]

You weren't actually listening to me, because I didn't give Akechi what he wanted. I didn't agree with him about you guys, and I kept coming back to the fact that he was being a dick. Maybe you guys could take two fucking seconds to think about why he decided to have a conversation with me when he was already angry and stop acting like I burned our fucking best friend bracelet.

[lifetothefullest]

[He doesn't fight her for the jacket--he doesn't need it anyway--and his voice is quiet and even, but not because he's calm.]

And maybe you should think for a moment about why this is the reaction you're getting.

[He doesn't feel like refuting any of the rest of what she said, at this point just completely uninterested in even trying; he can distantly recognize he's too upset to continue trying to discuss this productively, and he really just wants to be somewhere other than here. So unless she intervenes again, he's going for the door.]

[evocation]

[Of course she's going to intervene, because somehow, he's managed to trigger frustration that's been mounting in her since she got back. It's the lingering mess with her father back home, her damaged relationship with her brother, this stupid Riverstone bullshit, constantly feeling like no matter how hard she tries, someone has an issue with her. It's that old "can't do anything right" insecurity cranked up to 11.

So she drops the jacket to the floor, moves to step in front of him instead.]

What do you want from me? Do you actually want to understand what happened, or do you just want me to tell some kid to fuck off every time he talks to me? I don't even like him, and you're acting like I was groveling to get his approval.

[lifetothefullest]

I want some hint that you care at all about--

[And he stops, more because he can't find words than because he intends to, closing his eyes a moment and trying to get control over his emotions. The rush of anger that had just been present is rapidly fading, being replaced with the lower, nauseating combination of fear and resignation that appears as calm when he tries to speak again.]

We're not getting anywhere. Could you move?

[evocation]

I do care.

[It comes out as a sort of desperate emotional outburst, her voice quavering at the end. She doesn't understand why people are viewing this as her turning against them. She doesn't understand how her intentions can be so completely misconstrued by people she cares for and trusts so deeply.

Maybe if she were calmer, she wouldn't care about that tremble in her voice, but right now she's regressed to her old instinctive humiliation at any show of vulnerability. Emotion other than anger is too easy for people to use against you, too easy for people to seize on to crush you. Suddenly, she can't look at him, too overcome by that old, longstanding fear that she isn't actually worth understanding to anyone.]

Fine. Just leave.

[She hates that she still can't keep her voice steady, that it comes out hurt rather than the uncaring dismissal she was aiming for. He does get what he wants, though—she steps aside.]

[lifetothefullest]

[On some level he's worried that she won't move and then he'll have to figure out how he's going to handle that, but thankfully she steps aside and although he's registered her words and her tone and body language they don't actually process yet, his attention entirely on getting out of the apartment and somewhere else.

So he's gone the moment he has the chance, not really sure where he's going but leaving that as an issue for later.]