>lol no (deja vu edition)You flop onto your throbbing back. There's two blurry S-shapes above you, and you wonder for an instant if Richard's got his own gooplicate before realizing you've just gone crosseyed. He's just <span class="mu-i">made</span> you go cross-eyed. You. Who's never done a thing to deserve it, whose motivations are entirely pure, who has by all accounts been kind and gracious and unassuming through your whole entire life— he's debasing <span class="mu-i">you,</span> as he's done for months, as he's done for probably years. He is insulting you and hurting you. And in return he wants you to pick yourself up and do something you'd hate.
"Why would I?" you say.
«Because.»
>{-1 ID: 9/12]You kick and your back bucks and your shoulders thrust and you dig your nails into the dirt. You breathe. You breathe. You can breathe, for now.
«There's no choice in the matter.»
There's no <span class="mu-i">choice?</span> That's how he's playing this? Because— (You grit your teeth against the cramp in your thigh.) —because, it sure seems like you— like you can stay right here on the floor. If he wants to move you he can do it himself, but that'd sort of defeat his point, wouldn't it? Unless he means that he doesn't have a choice, but—
No. That's GS, too. Because if you remember one thing clearly, it's him being very very <span class="mu-i">very</span> nice to you in those final months before you jumped. And sure, it was a brittle, metallic nice in retrospect, not anything human or real— but he wasn't calling you names. He wasn't shocking you.
So why'd he turn so <span class="mu-i">mean?</span>
«Oh. So I suppose this is my fault.»
«I throw myself on the sword over and over and over for you, an ungrateful little bitch, and you have the <gall> to question how I conduct—»
Yes! You do! And you never <span class="mu-i">asked</span> him to be your whatever-he-is, <span class="mu-i">he</span> offered, to <span class="mu-i">you,</span> and even if he has saved your life you don't see what that has to do with it! Does that give him some sort of bastard permit? Does he have a little card you can show you? Because you saved <span class="mu-i">Gil's</span> life, twice, and you're not treating him like he's some kind of lesser lifeform (even if he objectively is made of bugs)— you have risen shakily to your feet. You have been <span class="mu-i">nice</span> to him, and he's been nice to you, and you don't understand why Richard can't—
>[-1 ID: 8/12]You stumble back into a rickety shelf and crumple, shaking. Papers rain onto you.
«I am not your friend or your family and you are not my equal, Charlotte Fawkins. I am not here to maximize your pleasure. Get that through your thick skull.»
«I <am> <not> <nice>. And I will not be.»
(1/3?)
