trans_9 | During Podpop [Open]

She could have questioned the hug but thought better of it, too busy enjoying it, wrapping her arms tight around him in return and pressing her face into his neck, shuddering as she swallowed back a rush of pent up panic and choked out, "Oh thank God. Where have you BEEN?"

"I had a splendid time dealing with GLaDoS's lies about Earth confectioneries."

Yeah, he's going to just enjoy that hug for a bit too.

"You're all right? After we got separated..." He'd had no idea if she'd made it.

Edited 2010-06-04 05:30 (UTC)

"I'm fine. I was in that damn maze with Jaime and... I was fine. Really."

She swallowed thickly, running her hands over his back and arms, feeling him out to make sure he wasn't broken or something.

"Were you okay?"

Unconsciously she looks him over and double-checks his arms for the scars that were there the last time she actually saw him.

They're still there, like many people's injuries were when it was over. Not all, but some--and his hadn't been caused by some kind of shadow beast.

"I assure you, I was fine."

The Coluan takes both her hands in his own spindly warm ones.

"As a Legionnaire, it wasn't my first time dealing with an enemy that caused psychological disturbance or mind alteration. I should tell you some stories about Universo sometime."

"I have lots of time right now." She squeezes his hands pulling him a little closer and letting out a shaky sigh.

"Really, can we just... can we talk? Before somebody else sees you and you vanish into the lab until the end of time?"

"I suppose. Let me just turn off the tracking on my flight ring--or else the other Legionnaires are going to detect it."

He fiddles with it.

"There. They can afford to wait a few moments longer, I suppose."

After all, she seems concerned about something.

She smiles a little when he switches off the tracking signal, unable to help but appreciate the undivided attention. Tugging on his hand she leads him along, off the obs deck and down one of the halls. After a minute of quiet walking they find themselves in the art gallery room, dimmed for the lack of movement and empty but for them.

Brenda lets out a breath she wasn't quite aware of holding.

"Thanks. I'm just... I thought I might not see you again."

And she's only just now grasping how awful that thought really is.

"These things happen when one is dealing with reality-warping otherdimensional beings. I'm fine, and now accounted for. You're alright. It's over and done, and anything that happened during our ordeal, we can simply dismiss," he says airily, looking anywhere but her.

"All of it?"

Her voice is small and soft, trying to catch his eyes with her own.

"You sure?"

"All of it," he insists. "After all, it was said during a time of extreme stress. People--people say things they sometimes don't mean."

"I meant it." she swallows hard, hands wringing together in front of her. "I wouldn't say something like that to you and not mean it."

Maybe it's all that time with GLaDoS--maybe it's given him time to really sit down and think. Maybe it's just all the time that's passed. Maybe it's the fact that they've been doing this little dance since they'd met and there always comes a time to stop dancing.

Either way, something odd happens: Brainiac opts for honesty. For sincerity. For once.

"Brenda, I don't doubt that you think you have feelings for me, and perhaps you actually do, but several fundamental facts should make you reconsider. One, I am a severely damaged and dysfunctional individual. Two, I am a severely insulting and caustic individual with very little regard for the feelings of others. Three, you have Paco's feeling to consider."

She flinches at his wording.

She just thought she had feelings for him? She just imagined feeling this way about him, something she had made up and could easily abandon? Hell...

"Damaged and dysfunctional is par for the course with me, in case you forgot. I won't argue with insulting and caustic but I've met way worse. And if you've been trying to disregard my feelings you're going to have to try a lot harder."

Brenda doesn't say a thing about Paco. That she can't argue with, doesn't know what she's going to do about, doesn't know what she's going to do in the first place...

"What about you?" She sucks in a breath and straightens her shoulders. "Is this one sided, or do you not know how you feel or?"

"That's completely irrelevant," Brainy insists. "Things should go on the way they have been, with us simply as friends, and with you content in your current relationship, rather than engaged in one that's doomed to failure from the start."

"How can how you feel about this POSSIBLY be irrelevant to this situation?" Brenda's voice is raised by shock and the faintest anger as his self-depreciation.

"Are you kidding me? Querl, this isn't that simple. Of course it matters how you feel."

Now he's getting frustrated.

"It most certainly does not. My primary concern is that you don't waste your time pursuing something that you'll undoubtedly regret pursuing later once you realize precisely how incompatible we are."

"You're not a waste of my time. You can't know that I would regret it if we... if we tried."

He breathes in several time, quickly, upset, looking around, trying not to face her, now that he's finally, really being pressed about this.

"You're willing to throw away a relationship with a suitable mate of your own species--a friend--someone who cares for you and is loyal to you and treats you much better than I ever could, for someone that's biologically, mentally, and emotionally incompatible. That's a ridiculous course of action. Haven't you stopped to think for a second that perhaps what appeals most to you is the fact that I'm not a suitable mate?"

He goes on, "Furthermore, I am a Legionnaire. This is all--" He waves a hand. "This is all just a distraction. That's what I've determined. There's too much that needs to be done right now, and my thoughts can't be preoccupied with anything other than the Ohm and the Daligig and determining the truth of our situation, and the best ways to apply my intellect to our predicament."

"So this is seriously how you're going to handle this? By telling me I don't know what I'm talking about? You're going to reduce my feelings down to 'you just want it because you can't have it' and think I'm going to let you get away with that?"

Her voice is going up and up in pitch, her hands are trembling but she jabs a finger into his chest anyway.

"Just because you're so smart doesn't mean you always know what's better for me. You think you can solve everything with logic. I make you feel something you're not comfortable with so you're going to set me aside and tell me I'm just a DISTRACTION and that I don't know what I really want and make up whatever shit you need to make up to sour-grapes your way out of that discomfort."

Her arms cross over her chest and pin her hands to her sides because if she doesn't she could just HIT him right now...

"You f*cking coward. Do you have any idea how much I've thought about this? The time I spent laying awake, replaying all the time I've spent with you in my head, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Do you seriously think I can just be happy and content with Paco when you're in the back of my mind all the time? Do you have any idea how bad it feels when he's holding me and I know he thinks that I love him just as much as he loves me, and I can't be sure that that's true anymore? Of course I care about him, I always will, but I just... "

She chokes up at that for a minute, guilt tripping her words.

"There isn't an easy answer here where no one gets hurt, Querl. It isn't like that."

"If I'm such a coward and emotionally...crippled, why are you even interested in me?"

Querl quickly shakes his his head.

"Never mind, there's no point in you even answering that question. I've had time to think about it and I've made my decision. I--I will always consider you a friend, but we keep veering towards something that--"

You know, he is being a coward, isn't he. A Legionnaire, unwilling to face something because it unnerved him. How was it that Darkseid seemed easier than all this?

Honesty. She wanted--no, she deserved honesty.

"We keep veering towards something I'm not ready for." Gritting his teeth, he let out a sigh through them and finally looked at her. "Towards something I'm not even sure I'm capable of."

He held up his arm, showing off the scars on his wrist.

"I'm a very...dysfunctional individual. I'm emotionally crippled in ways many other sentients aren't."

There. There, he admitted it. It wasn't the rest of the world not bowing down to his intellect, it was him. Something he'd known all along.

"Even if you--even if you truly do enjoy the company of that individual, even if you're ready to pursue--" a shrug "--whatever it is you're ready to pursue, it doesn't mean that I'm even...that I'm even capable..."

His shoulders sag.

"I don't know how to care about another person, Brenda."

He adds, after a brief pause. "I can't function in a relationship--it's difficult enough just functioning as a 12th-level intellect--I feel like a giant traipsing through a land full of intellectual midgets."

Edited 2010-06-24 16:49 (UTC)

Her irritation drains away the more he speaks, sympathy for his frustration choking off her anger at the source. She takes a few steps toward him, closes the gap between them with a gentle touch on his arm. Her fingers cover his scars gently, then trail up his arms, finally cupping her face between his hands.

She meets his eyes for a second before pushing up on her toes, getting just a little bit more height so that she can kiss him soundly.

There's nothing hesitant about it, nothing flinching or delicate. She puts everything into it, understanding that it might be the only time.

She leans close to his ear when she pulls away.

"I think that's a lie. I think you do know how, I think you could figure it out if you tried. I think you can handle so much more than you believe you can." She lets out a slow breath, avoiding meeting his eyes because she can't say this with a calm face on. "But if you're determined to tell me you can't then fine. We'll be friends, and we'll pretend like nothing happened, and when you figure out wether or not what we could have is worth the risk to you then you come find me."

Because this isn't as simple as telling him off until he figures something out that lets him do what he needs to do. This isn't as short term or cut and dried as just escaping a nightmare or trying to crutch through grief on one another's shoulders.

She loves him, and to undermine the gravity of what she's asking him to do by telling him he's 'just not trying hard enough' isn't fair and doesn't reflect any compassion for his situation. This is bigger than just getting by. This is the kind of choice neither of them can take back. If it had been this intimidating and distressing for her to work through how she felt how must it be for him?

"Just don't... don't tell me that I can't feel this way about you. I can. I do. And when you figure out what you want I still will."

Brainiac can't help but lean in, forehead pressing against hers slightly. She can likely feel the hard material of the facial implants.

"What about Paco? This isn't fair to him."

Holy crap, where'd that sense of empathy come from? But it's there.

"He'll handle it. He always does. He and I knew... we promised we wouldn't make things awful if it didn't last." she closes her eyes and presses back against him when he tips his head to touch hers.

"And Paco's been with me too long to just never talk to me again or something."

She thinks, she hopes, she prays to God...

During Podpop [Open]

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