13:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie gets Rolf to hold her place in the queue and then goes looking for Bob. It's been about half an hour since he walked off... can she find him? Has he gone into a secret fae bunker? Is there a treehouse in the Tatterdam? 13:20 <tom> He's down the side of the hill, outside the bounds of the party. She catches the glowing cigarette in the darkness beyond the glare of the light setup. 13:21 <tom> He's got the mask off, his visor still taped to its stupidly grinning face. 13:21 <tom> He chugs another lemonade. 13:21 <VoxPVoxD> ... "...Bob?" She's holding her skirt up as she ventures out past the boundaries of the party, where the grass is high and wet. 13:21 <VoxPVoxD> She's surprised it hasn't died, to be honest. But the magic under that old yew tree is strong. 13:22 <tom> "Aw, shit," he goes, turning to greet here. "You didn't haveta come out this way." 13:22 <VoxPVoxD> "I almost didn't. I feel like I've taken up an awful lot of your time tonight." 13:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Can I cadge a cigarette? I can't smoke around Sergio." 13:24 <tom> He pulls one from the pack. There's only a few left. He lights it on his before handing it over. "How's your boy doing? She scare him?" 13:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie takes it gratefully. "If she shook him, he's hiding it well. He is a survivor, is my Sergio." 13:25 <tom> "I didn't want that to happen." 13:26 <VoxPVoxD> "I know." Long drag. "I forgive you." 13:26 <tom> "It feels fucked." 13:26 <VoxPVoxD> "What does?" 13:26 <tom> "It's one thing to keep it all a secret from the normies, yeah, I get it. But I had this stupid notion..." 13:27 <tom> "You know, I really thought being a part of this... fuckin', whatcha call it, the 'night city', it'd mean I'd be free from all that." 13:27 <VoxPVoxD> "From politics?" 13:27 <VoxPVoxD> "From intrigue?" 13:27 <tom> "It sounds really stupid when you put it like that yeah." 13:27 <tom> "Dunno what I expected." 13:27 <tom> "I just mean, do they really live like that all the time?" 13:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "You have to understand. To the WASC, to the people who remember the old tyranny, you're talking about... those are Keepers under Inchcape." 13:28 <VoxPVoxD> "They were their Keepers." 13:29 <VoxPVoxD> "It's that kind of animosity." 13:29 <VoxPVoxD> "That kind of hurt. That kind of fear." 13:29 <tom> "Sergio doesn't seem so bad." 13:30 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Sergio was dying." 13:30 <tom> Bob puffs quietly. "Oh man, same." 13:31 <tom> "...He okay?" 13:31 <tom> He does air quotes at the word 'okay'. 13:31 <VoxPVoxD> "They offered him immortality for service. And now he's healthy, strong, beautiful... and grateful. Who wouldn't be? Who wouldn't make that choice?" 13:33 <tom> "I'm not looking for any more monsters. It's easier and easier these days to see them as people." 13:34 <tom> "I'm starting to think they're the ones insisting on being seen as other." 13:35 <VoxPVoxD> "...yeah." 13:35 <VoxPVoxD> "We'll just have to keep treating them like people until they get it." 13:36 <tom> "I've been really unprofessional around you, Willie. I'm sorry." Bob straightens his back. 13:36 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "What?" 13:36 <tom> "I don't mind if Badawi or Aster think I'm a fuckin' joke. I'm cool with it. Better that than the other thing." 13:36 <VoxPVoxD> "Has Agostina gotten under your skin?" 13:37 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't think she meant that as harshly as it came out. She's a tiny bit awkward." 13:37 <tom> "No." He smokes. "Yeah." 13:38 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't think you're a joke." 13:39 <VoxPVoxD> "Do I come off that way?" 13:41 <tom> Bob takes up the mask, wiping the lenses of his ODIN with a little cloth from his pocket before popping the wolf-head back on, pressing the edges under his suit's collar. "No." 13:41 <tom> "You think I'm a charity case." 13:41 <VoxPVoxD> "..." 13:43 <VoxPVoxD> "Is this about the omelette?" 13:43 <VoxPVoxD> "The little speech." 13:44 <tom> "No, this is about following a dude you barely know into the woods unarmed." 13:44 <tom> "I know I am not the right person to model behavior on but c'mon." 13:45 <VoxPVoxD> Willie drops the cigarette butt on the grass and stamps it out. Then she kneels down with a handkerchief and carefully wraps up the butt and puts it in her bag. 13:46 <tom> While she's distracted doing that, Bob flicks his cigarette off into the wet grass. 13:46 <tom> "...Look it's fine, you don't need to worry every time I like, face the obvious repercussions to being a horny idiot." 13:46 <VoxPVoxD> She misses it. While standing: "First of all, I am armed. You armed me. If you'd actually been disrespectfully flirty you'd have felt it whilst casually attempting to grab my bum." 13:46 <tom> "Ha," he shakes his head. 13:47 <VoxPVoxD> "Secondly, if I don't know you then I don't know anyone here. I barely know anyone at all." 13:47 <VoxPVoxD> "And maybe I don't. But I'm not going to concede the point." 13:47 <tom> "Ain't that the truth." 13:49 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't think you're a charity case. But you're the best friend I've got right now. When I see you hurting, it hurts me too. And I can't just sit and hurt." 13:50 <VoxPVoxD> "If you feel like I've been — if I'm being too familiar, then I understand. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable." 13:52 <tom> "I want to stay your friend. You've got your own deal going on with Sergio and his four controlling blood moms." 13:53 <tom> "Mari really needs me to keep it level. She really needs me to not fuck her over." 13:53 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "What are you talking about?" 13:54 <tom> "...He told you about the whole uh... the blood thing?" 13:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "His binding, yes. What does that have to do with you? Or Mari?" 13:56 <tom> "I had you mixed up, yeah." Bob rolls his shoulders. "I thought you were like her, but you're not. You're like me." 13:56 <tom> "Well, in role if not personality." 13:56 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "What is our role, then?" 13:56 <tom> "You don't need me like she does." 13:56 <tom> "Keep them safe." 13:57 <tom> "Sergio keeps his cards close to his chest, but I've seen how he acts around you." 13:58 <tom> "He's way more lost than you are." 13:58 <tom> "...I'm the same way, truth is." 13:58 <tom> "I guess that's your superpower. You know exactly what you're supposed to be, and you told it to fuck off." 13:58 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "It sounds like you think there are only two ways to be. That if you don't see someone as someone in need of protecting - a charity case - then they must see you as one. An object of pity." 13:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Is there no room for equals? For peers? For people who need help and are there when you need it?" 13:59 <tom> "Lady, all the people I am meeting thesenights are very clear that we're not equals." 13:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Not all of them." 14:00 <VoxPVoxD> "Have I made you feel that way?" 14:00 <tom> "No," says the wolf. "You don't need to tell me what I already know's true." 14:01 <VoxPVoxD> "Which is, what? That you're beneath me?" 14:03 <tom> "Let's count 'em." 14:03 <VoxPVoxD> Here we go. 14:04 <tom> "One, you're literally magic. You are already basically a sorceror, in a way that clearly is unlike anything else we've seen here." 14:05 <tom> "...To the extent that you should get the fuck out if Cheiron comes calling. They don't discriminate. Anything weird's just meat for them to grind into hamburger." 14:05 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's going to let him get all this out. 14:06 <tom> "Two, you've spoken fucking Norman French with a four-century old Elder, and walked out not just alive but with a fucking job." 14:06 <tom> "That takes not just smarts, but like, finesse." 14:07 <tom> "Three, and this is the biggie, you're not a murderous sicko." 14:07 <tom> "You could fucking run this city if they gave you a few years and some muscle." 14:08 <tom> "Oh yeah, and uh, four, holy shit lady, you could ask every guy at this party to drown themselves in the river to make you a bridge to walk dry to the other side and we'd probably just leap right ni." 14:09 <tom> in* 14:10 <tom> "Five, I'm running out of things to say but I think you get the point." 14:10 <VoxPVoxD> Willie is silent for a time. 14:13 <tom> "So yeah," 14:13 <VoxPVoxD> She looks up the hill, and she looks up at the moon, and then she looks Bob in the eye, as best she can. "I have prepared rebuttals to all of your points. But I don't think this is a debate, really. I don't think you're trying to persuade me of my objective superiority as measured by my video game statistics." 14:13 <VoxPVoxD> "I think you're trying to say, like—" Her American accent is terrible. "I'm bad news, lady. You'd best keep your distance if you know what's good for you." But she tries very hard. 14:14 <tom> "That's about right." 14:14 <tom> "I wasn't just calling you 'kid' because I had a crush." 14:14 <VoxPVoxD> "Well, at least you haven't got a crush anymore." 14:16 <tom> Bob doesn't answer that. Instead: "There are some people who really do just deserve to feel like shit." 14:17 <tom> "I'm just pissed there aren't more who actually do." 14:17 <VoxPVoxD> "Let me be as open as possible. I think you're clever, and sweet, and brave, and very fun to talk to. Like I said, without your support, very little of what I've come to love about my life would be possible. But you know what? None of that matters. Not even a little bit." 14:18 <VoxPVoxD> "You can't earn affection. Friendship is not a prize to be won. Nobody deserves love." 14:19 <VoxPVoxD> "Think of the implications. A man steals a loaf of bread to feed his family. Is that wrong? No, of course not. The wrong was that he needed to. What if he broke into a chemist to get medicine for his wife? Same again." 14:20 <VoxPVoxD> "Food, shelter, medicine, whatever substance that sustains life - yeah, those are rights. People deserve them. But love?" 14:20 <VoxPVoxD> "If affection can be deserved or undeserved, then it can be owed. If friendship can be owed, it can be demanded." 14:20 <VoxPVoxD> "If love can be demanded, then it can - in extremity - be taken by force." 14:20 <VoxPVoxD> "No. None of that. I am your friend because I choose to be, and because you let me." 14:21 <tom> "It's a selfish impulse. I've already put you in danger. Shit, I did it tonight." 14:21 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you think Mari loves you because she made an objective assessment of your qualities as a person?" 14:22 <tom> "Because I was trying to raise eyebrows on a cold little woman who probably will just tear my throat out if I ever annoy her." 14:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you think, consequently, that she's just shopping around for a better deal?" 14:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you really think so little of the people who care for you?" 14:22 <tom> Bob laughs at first. "Shit, she should. It's like they used to say. Don't like the Tacteam?" 14:22 <tom> "Wait a week." 14:22 <tom> The second part hits him like a truck. 14:22 <VoxPVoxD> "No, she didn't. She chose you, and you chose her back." 14:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Because you're a good man, and she's a good woman, and you both understand the truth." 14:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Love does not belong to the worthy. Love belongs to the willing." 14:23 <tom> "...Shit." 14:24 <tom> He looks around. "Let's get outta this awful fucking bog." 14:24 <VoxPVoxD> "So if I ever make you feel uncomfortable or pitied or intruded-upon, I beg you to tell me." 14:24 <VoxPVoxD> "But insofar as you think I've misallocated my feelings... eat my ass, Goreman." 14:25 <VoxPVoxD> She says this kindly. 14:25 <tom> "Yes.. ma'am?" He stammers. 14:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie giggles. "Okay, you convinced me. I hate you now." 14:25 <VoxPVoxD> "Come on. Let's return to civilisation." 14:26 <tom> "That's better." He is eager to get out of the cold. 14:26 <VoxPVoxD> Willie feels like she already has.