Well don't say anything. Don't tell Dorian don't... just don't.
Are you really asking me if I noticed he was gone? Well, Richie, the pillow next to mine had been chilly for a while but I just thought he'd popped out for a stroll.
[Even if that's exactly what he's doing here. But he knows Prior better than Dorian, and from the frayed threads he'd gathered Richie sensed a tenderness between old By-By and the kid that went beyond your typical paramours. Just the way the man reacted when Richie asked about Prior's health, even once, was enough to convince him. Byerly didn't seem the type to love easily, and he guarded what he did with a rottweiler's ferocity and a spy's subterfuge.
And he's...worried. Maybe a little lost himself — for all the infuriatingly circular debates he'd had with the Vor lord Richie can't deny that he'd been relying on that tired rivalry for something, Lord only knows what. But his bigger concern is Prior, a man of spectacularly big heart and a penchant for worming into the caustic, much smaller hearts of those around him. Maybe he lose it and try sparking another riot, like how he'd gone after the kidnappings. Maybe he'd hold his head high and be the most reasonable of all, use the same saintly clarity with which he can see that dish-rag Lou.
Maybe Richie's just scared of losing what little he's got left himself. Beverly, Sandra, Steve, Diana, and now Byerly. What if Prior goes? Boxer or Red, or any of the kids?]
Well if you look closely, I asked how you were doing. It seems you haven't lost the sharp tip to that tongue of yours, I'll take that as a good sign.
[No riots, but no clear-headed logic, either. Prior spent a couple of days as a shut-in with a bed he no longer shared with anybody, then slapped on a brave face and has been attempting not to talk about it.
Because he isn't supposed to. Never has been. Not supposed to walk down the street arm twined in arm in case people noticed Byerly cares for something - someone - and care makes him weak, gives all the half-imagined threats a target. It is a precarious and lonely place to love and be loved silently. Stranger still to lose that love, alone. Heartbreak's such a viceral thing, Prior isn't sure how all the broken shards inside him havent started to rattle.
So, not fighty or rational. Lonely, and desperately sad.]
I.
If I talk about it I have to talk about him and then he'll be furious with me when he wakes up.
[He almost hits send on his initial thoughts. "Furious? Why?"
Of course that's real fucking stupid, and in the precious half-second he's got before his thumb taps the enter key Richie thinks twice. Byerly was guarded for a reason. Prior wasn't, but maybe by necessity he had to be.
Richie pauses. If he hadn't gotten the dubious privilege of checking into the man's past, seeing his sister, his emperor and his duties, he'd leave that as that and fuck off until he caught Prior in person.
But since he knows?]
Then tell him I goaded you into it and he's gotta give me a big old spanking.
While I wasn't unaware of the participants supplémentaires in our sex life, I do stop somewhere short of setting him up for kink parties: my apologies.
[It may seem flippant, but there are two admissions testing the water here, both of them held in that our. Too small a word to contain anything Byerly was to him and still, both mutual and possessive at once. He feels possessive, suddenly. Far more jealous of Byerly's attentions now they're out of reach to everyone.]
I'm angry. I'm so angry I could spit, and I'm not even sure who with. And I feel like shit of a whole new flavor to the usual. Will that do?
[Well. Stamp that as confirmed and ship it off to Uncle Sam.]
That was probably Koralle's job.
[Not that he'd specifically imagined their bond as chaste, but even so, he feels a touch surprised. With how cavalier Byerly had been about lovers it seemed contradictory that he would let himself get attached to one. That's the biggest no-no of the spy game, isn't it? He's already got a liability in his baby sister Nadine, which was a pure and familial bond. On the other hand was Prior Walter: in spite all the ghastly circumstances, Lou looked to hold a spell on him even today.
Richie should hold the shock and awe though. Again, he knows these men in only bits and pieces.]
It does. You have every right to be angry, and to be angry out loud. You're gonna blow a gasket holding it all in.
Miles is there too, did you see? Byerly's been half gone ever since he left, anyway. I tried to... provide some comfort - occupy him elsewhere at least but. Well. Wasn't enough.
I did. I never met the kid in person, just over that video they posted when he first came in. I know there was tension there but it doesn't surprise me that it was a blow.
I suppose that makes you the last tenant standing? Do you have somewhere else to go?
Yeah, they packed up and laid prone in glass coffins so they could play Snow White together forever. Sad thing is, I can't get the glass off to smooch them back to life.
Well fuck. What's with this place, for God's sakes? It seems to me the only kind of screwed anybody's getting around here is over. I'm sorry, Richie, losing somebody's a pill but someone from your own world's the kind of pill you could choke on.
Matter of fact I was up paying respects to the other guys that went back to sleep. Don't suppose you ever met a Steve Trevor or Diana? Or even a pretty ghost in a green glass ball, name of Sandra?
[It does and it doesn't feel foolish to him to type it out any longer. Her situation had grown steadily more familiar to him as she grew into a close confidante, but explaining it to other people only reminds him of how incredulous he had been when the crystal ball started speaking to him in Thesa's kitchen, giving him shit for letting his bolognese boil over. But they were all strange, and perhaps Prior had met stranger folk yet.
No, there were other things making him bristle now. Giving the real number of losses makes him look like a real hound dog. Just a-cryin all the time. Not what he'd had in mind when he messaged Prior at all.]
It's a hard pill sure, but I'm swallowing all right. Bevvie's safer sleeping. Thinking of her or any of the gang going through this shit has my testes shrinking back up for shelter.
A noble concept, if not image. And nonsense, of course. There's no storm that can be improved by bravely weathering it alone. For all we know they're
[Dead already. Byerly used to think so. And Prior, for his part and given his strange ability to know such things, is acutely aware it isn't true. It's whether living in that state is worth anything that begs the question.
Oh but he's desperately maudlin. Of course he's starting to sound like By.]
Well, anyway. I knew Diana. [A queen should be aware of her competition - they ate ice cream together.] And the - the glass ball? I met her too. My doctor went, before all this. You'll have known him from work: John Watson. My, it really has been a cull. We're practically decimated.
[There, put it in perspective. His small desolations don't matter at all in the scale of things.
I had wondered if the doc abandoned the post for better pay or just better sleep. Never got to chat with the fellow, but I'm sorry to hear it all the same.
Yeah, it's a bloody swathe all right. The new kids are piling in but the old guard is dwindling all the same. I wonder how the numbers skew now.
Well they're dead ringers for big time G-O-Ds even if they insist that's not the game. Here to work every miracle except the ones you need and the ones you ask for.
Oh, as if real gods are that involved. They're not gods, these things. They're micromanagers if anything, any greater force is far beyond the pay grade they're on.
I'd just like to know why, I suppose. Am I supposed to be lonely? Did I do something terribly wrong?
didn't take you for a religious fellow. You're not hoping for a real divine intervention, are you? I'd say the time for it came and went myself.
Like what? Next to the rest of us a guy like you is a bonafide saint. If you're getting personal punishment what's coming for us hooligans and bad eggs?
And sodomites don't get to be saintly, you should know that. Balanced at the edge of the fiery pit, we lure others to its depths, that's all. Sirens, not saints. But I'm curious - for a bad egg I haven't detected a hint of sulfur. What is this fad for self-loathing? It's just not like me to be behind the trend.
But you went looking anyway. That's more faith than most.
[Ah yes, this old yarn. Something you could subscribe to as a pint-sized choir boy, but made less and less sense the more life you lived. The wonderful thing about eschewing God was doing away with all those archaic don't-you-dares. And he'd...well, not with Byerly, but with girls, sure.]
There's far worse sin in this world than a little ass poking, you should know that.
That's a mystery for you to solve, my sulfur is secret and close to my heart.
Or maybe just more need. For the fabulous, of course - stow the divine. When it comes to that I've generally considered myself a WASP with a silent P.
[And, through everything, the wages of sin theory is not one Prior ascribes to. Calculated, perhaps, but he raises the point to test other people's moral quandaries, not his own. 9 parts theatrics to a single measure of caution. Richie's passed the test more than once already, still: force of habit.]
So you're saying I should get close to your heart to find it?
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Are you really asking me if I noticed he was gone? Well, Richie, the pillow next to mine had been chilly for a while but I just thought he'd popped out for a stroll.
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[Even if that's exactly what he's doing here. But he knows Prior better than Dorian, and from the frayed threads he'd gathered Richie sensed a tenderness between old By-By and the kid that went beyond your typical paramours. Just the way the man reacted when Richie asked about Prior's health, even once, was enough to convince him. Byerly didn't seem the type to love easily, and he guarded what he did with a rottweiler's ferocity and a spy's subterfuge.
And he's...worried. Maybe a little lost himself — for all the infuriatingly circular debates he'd had with the Vor lord Richie can't deny that he'd been relying on that tired rivalry for something, Lord only knows what. But his bigger concern is Prior, a man of spectacularly big heart and a penchant for worming into the caustic, much smaller hearts of those around him. Maybe he lose it and try sparking another riot, like how he'd gone after the kidnappings. Maybe he'd hold his head high and be the most reasonable of all, use the same saintly clarity with which he can see that dish-rag Lou.
Maybe Richie's just scared of losing what little he's got left himself. Beverly, Sandra, Steve, Diana, and now Byerly. What if Prior goes? Boxer or Red, or any of the kids?]
Well if you look closely, I asked how you were doing. It seems you haven't lost the sharp tip to that tongue of yours, I'll take that as a good sign.
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Because he isn't supposed to. Never has been. Not supposed to walk down the street arm twined in arm in case people noticed Byerly cares for something - someone - and care makes him weak, gives all the half-imagined threats a target. It is a precarious and lonely place to love and be loved silently. Stranger still to lose that love, alone. Heartbreak's such a viceral thing, Prior isn't sure how all the broken shards inside him havent started to rattle.
So, not fighty or rational. Lonely, and desperately sad.]
I.
If I talk about it I have to talk about him and then he'll be furious with me when he wakes up.
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Of course that's real fucking stupid, and in the precious half-second he's got before his thumb taps the enter key Richie thinks twice. Byerly was guarded for a reason. Prior wasn't, but maybe by necessity he had to be.
Richie pauses. If he hadn't gotten the dubious privilege of checking into the man's past, seeing his sister, his emperor and his duties, he'd leave that as that and fuck off until he caught Prior in person.
But since he knows?]
Then tell him I goaded you into it and he's gotta give me a big old spanking.
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[It may seem flippant, but there are two admissions testing the water here, both of them held in that our. Too small a word to contain anything Byerly was to him and still, both mutual and possessive at once. He feels possessive, suddenly. Far more jealous of Byerly's attentions now they're out of reach to everyone.]
I'm angry. I'm so angry I could spit, and I'm not even sure who with. And I feel like shit of a whole new flavor to the usual. Will that do?
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That was probably Koralle's job.
[Not that he'd specifically imagined their bond as chaste, but even so, he feels a touch surprised. With how cavalier Byerly had been about lovers it seemed contradictory that he would let himself get attached to one. That's the biggest no-no of the spy game, isn't it? He's already got a liability in his baby sister Nadine, which was a pure and familial bond. On the other hand was Prior Walter: in spite all the ghastly circumstances, Lou looked to hold a spell on him even today.
Richie should hold the shock and awe though. Again, he knows these men in only bits and pieces.]
It does. You have every right to be angry, and to be angry out loud. You're gonna blow a gasket holding it all in.
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Miles is there too, did you see? Byerly's been half gone ever since he left, anyway. I tried to... provide some comfort - occupy him elsewhere at least but. Well. Wasn't enough.
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I did. I never met the kid in person, just over that video they posted when he first came in. I know there was tension there but it doesn't surprise me that it was a blow.
I suppose that makes you the last tenant standing? Do you have somewhere else to go?
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Other than us all being on this ship, going somewhere? I've been assigned a cosy little chambre pour un just to rub salt into the wound.
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And when you go planetside?
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No. I don't know. Not yet.
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Well if you need a pad in the interim, I'm flying solo again too. The extra bed throws off the feng shui when it's sitting empty.
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What a typical sob story, am I right?
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You found Byerly when you were looking for her?
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[It does and it doesn't feel foolish to him to type it out any longer. Her situation had grown steadily more familiar to him as she grew into a close confidante, but explaining it to other people only reminds him of how incredulous he had been when the crystal ball started speaking to him in Thesa's kitchen, giving him shit for letting his bolognese boil over. But they were all strange, and perhaps Prior had met stranger folk yet.
No, there were other things making him bristle now. Giving the real number of losses makes him look like a real hound dog. Just a-cryin all the time. Not what he'd had in mind when he messaged Prior at all.]
It's a hard pill sure, but I'm swallowing all right. Bevvie's safer sleeping. Thinking of her or any of the gang going through this shit has my testes shrinking back up for shelter.
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[Dead already. Byerly used to think so. And Prior, for his part and given his strange ability to know such things, is acutely aware it isn't true. It's whether living in that state is worth anything that begs the question.
Oh but he's desperately maudlin. Of course he's starting to sound like By.]
Well, anyway. I knew Diana. [A queen should be aware of her competition - they ate ice cream together.] And the - the glass ball? I met her too. My doctor went, before all this. You'll have known him from work: John Watson. My, it really has been a cull. We're practically decimated.
[There, put it in perspective. His small desolations don't matter at all in the scale of things.
Only they do, damn it all. They really do.]
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Yeah, it's a bloody swathe all right. The new kids are piling in but the old guard is dwindling all the same. I wonder how the numbers skew now.
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I've heard it's that there's something still to be fixed by their stasis but some of us unfixable ones find that a hard concept to buy.
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Well they're dead ringers for big time G-O-Ds even if they insist that's not the game. Here to work every miracle except the ones you need and the ones you ask for.
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I'd just like to know why, I suppose. Am I supposed to be lonely? Did I do something terribly wrong?
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Like what? Next to the rest of us a guy like you is a bonafide saint. If you're getting personal punishment what's coming for us hooligans and bad eggs?
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And sodomites don't get to be saintly, you should know that. Balanced at the edge of the fiery pit, we lure others to its depths, that's all. Sirens, not saints. But I'm curious - for a bad egg I haven't detected a hint of sulfur. What is this fad for self-loathing? It's just not like me to be behind the trend.
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[Ah yes, this old yarn. Something you could subscribe to as a pint-sized choir boy, but made less and less sense the more life you lived. The wonderful thing about eschewing God was doing away with all those archaic don't-you-dares. And he'd...well, not with Byerly, but with girls, sure.]
There's far worse sin in this world than a little ass poking, you should know that.
That's a mystery for you to solve, my sulfur is secret and close to my heart.
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[And, through everything, the wages of sin theory is not one Prior ascribes to. Calculated, perhaps, but he raises the point to test other people's moral quandaries, not his own. 9 parts theatrics to a single measure of caution. Richie's passed the test more than once already, still: force of habit.]
So you're saying I should get close to your heart to find it?
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