originallutece | (no subject)

I don't know. Perhaps? It's just...

[He looks down, picking at the hem of his sleeve with his fingers for something to do while he deliberates.]

I like this. I like who I am, how I fit into...this. It makes me feel like I know who I am, even without all the difficulty caused by hallucinomemories that make me think I might not.

I don't want those memories to take this away, but I don't want something mundane to take it from me, either. I don't want to lose...this feeling, that it's right for me to be who and what and where I am.

There's nothing to say you will.

[She doesn't nudge him again, though she's tempted to. Let him glance away and fidget, if that makes him feel better; her gaze on him is steady enough for the both of them.]

Neither supernatural or mundane. Unless there's some factor I'm not aware of, I should think this state of affairs will go on for as long as you'd like them to.

A factor you're not aware of...?

[He glances up, blinking gray eyes in her direction for a moment, and then seems to settle again as he reexamines the notion she's presented.]

You're fine with it, then. With things continuing like this?

Yes.

[Perhaps I shouldn't be, she almost says, or it's not precisely normal . . . But in the end, she bites her tongue. She's very selfish, she knows, and she's being particularly so tonight, when the right thing to do would be to demur and redirect. You should go home, a responsible teacher would say, but what Rosalind Lutece wants is for things to continue precisely down this path.]

So long as you are, then . . . yes, Christopher, I am. Very much so.

I'm not the one who —

[Mm, no. That's the idea he wants to voice, yes, but that's not the method he wants to use to do it, and it shows in his expression.]

...I think what I mean is, there's a distinct possibility that I will prove more of a detriment to you than you ever could be to me. In a number of ways.

It's not that I don't think you've considered that. But I think acknowledging the possibility, for me, needs to be explicit — not merely implicit.

[Mm. She isn't so certain about that. Certainly she's considered the drawbacks for each of them, and god knows it would make life more difficult if . . .

Well. They haven't done anything yet. There's no law against being friends with your assistant. And though the university might frown on it, she doesn't think there'll be any lasting repercussions. But ah, something more . . . that would lead to disaster. That would be ruinous for both of them, but she still thinks he would be worse off than her.

Is he talking about that? Perhaps. Perhaps not. And she's selfish, yes, and selfish enough not to want to check, for fear that he'll answer in the negative and shatter her hope.]

Present your evidence for it, then. That it would be so much worse for me than you.

[Which is a serious request, but also something a touch teasing as well. They've done this before, when he's said something she thought was wrong. Present your evidence, prove your point, whether it be for a point in his thesis or something far more intimate.]

The time you spend on me could just as easily be spent on someone else. You have options and resources available to you that I don't.

[He pauses a moment, long enough to gather his thoughts, and it shows in the way his voice changes when he resumes. Somehow, the hesitant reticence has fled, replaced by simply a calm and even tenor that doesn't shy away from laying out a picture for her to examine.]

You said as much yourself, earlier. Didn't you? "At this rate I'm going to beggar you from bus fare." Coming to my apartment "wouldn't work out particularly well." We're not equals. And I think we can both agree that it's indisputably a step up for me, when I move into your spheres. So it stands to reason that it's the opposite if and when you move into mine.

Even without putting you on a pedestal, Dr. Lutece, we're not equals. But I think that pretending to be, without first confronting that, will only make things worse in the long run. Because it's not sustainable, is it? So paradoxically enough, I have more to lose by losing you than you do by losing me, but you stand to lose more by investing in a rapport with me than I do in you, because I'm hardly in a position to do better than a friendship with you — but you could certainly do better than me.

[She listens, just as she listens to all his evidence, because rarely does Fawkes give her something poorly done. And he does have a point: certainly there's a difference between the two of them that goes beyond even age. They're at two different stages of life; he's a student and she's already an accomplished scholar (though not yet as accomplished as she'd like). And yes, he's correct in that they ought to confront that, because to not do so would simply make things worse later on. But . . .]

. . . you act as though friendship is a game of achievements.

[She tucks her hair behind her ear, but her tone is as steady as his.]

As though I ought to aim higher than you. You're right, we're not equals, and we ought to acknowledge that, but don't act as though I should stop seeing you because you're not as accomplished as I am. I'm not somehow degrading myself by spending with you, Christopher.

[A beat, and then:]

Doing better . . . that's the second time you've mentioned that to me. First it was with Tony, and now you. Precisely what kind of person do you imagine I should spend time with?

[There's a note of danger in that last sentence. He isn't in trouble, but he ought to watch what he says next.]

[She's got a point, really. Thinking back over it, she's hit the nail fairly on the head — friendship as a game of achievements, and it leads him to review his other friendships and relationships in that light just for the sake of seeing if the point bears out there.

He's always a little surprised when Majima proves to support him, doesn't he? And the feeling he's tried to describe to others before, the loneliness of being in a crowd — on some level, was he perpetuating that on his own, by perceiving himself as not properly fitting in with the people around him? What is it that makes him want to perceive a hierarchy even in situations that, by all rights, none should exist? Why?

Why is he like this?

Uncertain, he draws in on himself just a touch, eyes going distant as he tries to work through his thoughts and the implications that come attached to them. Was he like this with Kuro? And if not, then why was it different? Was it different because he didn't have to be anyone, then, and so he simply was?

What's the matter with him? He's had his moments of seeing Dr. Lut— of seeing Rosalind as she is. So, then, is he ashamed of who he is? Is that it, at the end of it all?

Every so often, he aches from missing Kuro, and this is one of those occasions. He's supposed to be certain of who he is, and yet his grasp on what that means is even more tentative than he'd once thought. But back then it hadn't mattered; he'd simply been whoever he'd felt like being at the time, and it had been fine, and nothing bad had come of it.]

...Someone perfect, I suppose.

[He says, quietly.]

Perhaps on some level I'm simply suffering from Imposter Syndrome.

[Perhaps. And perhaps it's something else, too. Even without putting you on a pedestal, but no, he is, isn't he? She isn't perfect. She's not even close. And yet he thinks that anyone less than that isn't worthy of her, no matter who they are. God, it's not even a matter of achievements; Carter is as acclaimed and successful as they come, and yet still Fawkes disapproves of him.]

I know who you are, Christopher. You're sharply intelligent, and more mature than most men your age; there's a reason I like spending time with you. I don't invite you here on a whim, and I'm not suffering under a delusion you're somehow different than you truly are. I'm fond of you-- of you-- and I like spending time with you, especially when you treat me as your equal.

Edited 2017-06-18 21:53 (UTC)

[He's quiet a minute, absorbing all that. It's not that he thinks she's lying, far from it. Still, it's something he wants to take slowly, and try to memorize, because what she's saying is important and it's always easier to hear coming from someone else, when it's difficult to subscribe to on his own.]

...You call me Christopher when you want me to pay attention to you. Don't you?

Yes.

[And in times like now, when she wants to lessen the distance between them. Fawkes and Dr. Lutece are very formal ways of referring to one another, highly professional and entirely impersonal. But Christopher and Rosalind . . . that's far better for a night like tonight, when they're sitting on a couch together and discussing their emotions.]

It seems to do the trick.

It does.

[And he seems to waver a minute, hovering on the verge of venturing something he's not sure he should voice, but then eventually seems to muster his courage and offers: ]

Does...would you prefer it, if at times like this, I didn't always...always call you Dr. Lutece...?

I would.

[Perhaps she says that too quickly, but she doesn't regret it.]

I'd, ah, I'd like that quite a bit, actually.

[A beat, and she nudges him gently with her foot again.]

And certainly it would help distinguish between when we're being professional and when we're in private.

It would. It...would certainly help with that.

[And yet still he hesitates, long enough that it may start to seem like he isn't going to bite at all.

But then, at length, he glances up and ventures softly: ]

...Rosalind.

That wasn't so hard, was it?

[That might sound a little abrupt or glib if she'd said it cheerfully, but her voice is quiet, and so all it comes out as is pleased.

Her name sounds good in his warm tones. If nothing else, she's glad to have gotten to hear it.]

Christopher.

[She may as well return the favor.]

. . . you know, I talked to Pro-- to Ardyn about those very fears you mentioned before. That difference between us. I, however, worried just the opposite: that I might put you in a position where you felt pressured to spend time with me, and that you'd rather be spending it with someone else. And that, ah . . . it might be inappropriate to have a friendship with you at all.

[A beat, and then she smiles faintly.]

In so many words, he told me to stop worrying so much and enjoy this for what it is.

You spoke to Professor Izunia about me?

[Well, that gets him to look surprised, to say the least.]

...For what it's worth, I can honestly say I've never felt pressured to...well, to do any of what you're describing, really. I know you have too much integrity to cheapen the value of someone's academic accomplishments with that sort of external pressure.

[She hums softly in agreement. Of course she'd never do such a thing, but at the same time, it would be terribly easy to accidentally fall into such a trap-- hence why she keeps asking him.]

I'm glad.

[This isn't the last time they're going to have this conversation, she's certain. But for the moment, it's best if they let it be-- and in the meantime, perhaps she can try and ease things between them another way.]

. . . you texted me with a game. Would you mind if I engaged you in another?

Oh.

[Oh. Well, that's a segue, all right, and not at all an unpleasant one, either.]

I wouldn't mind. What sort of game?

Tell me something about yourself. Inane or serious, I don't care what, but something I don't yet know. And in return, I'll do the same. A fact for a fact, does that sound fair?

Ah.

[Well, that's easy enough. He ponders a moment, trying to decide on something worth telling. Inane or serious, she'd said, but his impulse is to go for a little of both.]

I...my birthday, it's December 29th.

[That's certainly a little of both.]

[It's not compulsory, but still Rosalind casts her mind about for something vaguely related to that.]

I broke my arm on my thirteenth birthday.

You broke your arm?

[!!]

How?

I was hiding. My mother and I had gotten into another argument, and rather than stay at my family party, I ran off to sulk. I usually spent my free time reading in hiding anyway, so I grabbed a book and climbed my usual tree.

It had been raining the night before. I got fairly high up, slipped on a wet branch, and had to endure my mother being smugly self-righteous for the next six weeks.

What a shame you didn't have someone to catch you.

[It's an odd thing to say, maybe, and yet he doesn't precisely regret it, either — and in fact finds himself leaning just a little bit forward, gravitating toward her.]

Not that it likely would've helped much, but even so.