barrayar | I am junking up this beautiful community with this junk

[A twist of his lips, concealed dark humor.] That is the question, [he murmurs. Can he ever separate himself from the Imperium that much? It's just a fiction that he does. But it's a fiction that he needs to stay sane.

Gregor lets out a breath.] All right. It unnerves me because I have had to guard my weaknesses very closely, my whole life. You probably know something about that. But if you'd like to see one memory, one that has nothing to do with the Imperium, I think I have one I could share.

[Trust. Trust. He's the one saying he needs to take that step and expecting Mark to do it would be cruel. Practicing what you preach is tough.]

[They're not quite holding hands, just resting one on top of the other. At least until Gregor realizes his next impulse is for his fingers to creep up and caress his wrist, feel his pulse...

He needs to stop this, here they are talking about how they have to get married and he still feels this way. Miles is going to feel that cold wash as Gregor tries to stamp out those heated impulses, hating himself for them, and to combat the message that sends he turns Miles's hand over on the table to let them lace fingers properly. Just digging himself in deeper, isn't he, but he feels torn in half by wanting to comfort Miles so very badly and yet... not able to let himself without spiking his self-loathing, and each one feeding the other...

What a terrible mess.]

Shall I deconstruct all of the flaws you see in yourself? [Now he sounds hoarse, all the events of tonight catching up with him, and this time he does blame it a bit on the wine.] Trot them out and I'll counter them, if you like. Remember-- we can't see ourselves from an exterior view. I needed you to see me.

[ Honestly? No. He doesn't want to see a memory. He feels like if that memory turns out to be miserable, it'll just hurt to see - and if the memory is happy, it'll hurt even worse. But after all this, refusing would be...really awkward. And a little painful for Gregor, he thinks.

He's not sure when he started caring enough about Gregor to worry about whether or not he's being caused pain. He's not sure when he started caring about causing pain. It might be that he always cared, and he just never really actually inflicted pain before...He doesn't know.

Anyway. ]

All right. If you want to.

[They're standing in front of the door to Aral's bedroom, looking at each other not unlike formerly recalcitrant teenagers come to apologize about shouting at their parents the night before. Gregor is definitely not eager for this conversation, and yet-- he's cautiously optimistic, too, that Aral will approve of what he'd done. He's long past needing his approval, but being in a position where he's free to like getting it without it altering his decisions has not yet become stale to him.

But this is definitely going to be fraught, and complicated, so as Gregor eyes the door he murmurs to Miles,] He's your clone. I think you should explain.

[ And Miles, in a near-conspiratorial hiss: ]

You were the one he swore himself to. That makes him yours.

[ He objects mostly for the image of it though; Gregor can likely already beginning to build his argument. Hello, Da, remember how you and Mother desperately wanted more children but couldn't manage it? Don't look now, but someone followed me home... ]

You're the reason I had to step in, [he points out, but stops the argument there, because he actually isn't fourteen anymore. The suspense is cut short as Gregor reaches up and knocks on the door.

Then he ruins it by adding: If that's your idea of an opening argument, then let me suggest just recounting events as they occurred.]

[ Close enough, or so he had felt until Gregor had turned his hand and actually laced their fingers together. The combination of that with that cold wash triggers another quiet little spark of guilt, this time held well away from his friend. Gregor can't even touch him like this without revulsion, eh? Whether a direct comment on Miles - which he gladly doubts, his free hand drifting towards the spot on his chest where still feels the brand - or a reflection of Prince Serg, which seems more likely. He doesn't want to cause that kind of reaction in Gregor. He wants ... he wants ...

For all that they can pull each other out of their slumps, they sure can slide in together too. He feels a sense of freefall now, lost between guilt and gratitude once again. Charge forward anyway. Maybe they'll come out the other side unharmed.

(Stubbornly, though, he picks the topic he thinks Gregor will have the worst time defending.) ]

I am a physical curiosity at best. Really, Gregor, there are few enough women on Barrayar that they can have their pick of any face they like, and have a sparkling personality to match.

[Aral had often heard the Vor ladies talk among themselves as to what raising children was like. It was more of a peripheral conversation, dialog drifting in and out that he never took much thought into cataloging. Who was marrying who, who was related to who, who killed who three generations ago.

It wasn't until just a few hours ago that he was suddenly and astutely reminded of the knowing tone as one declared "And there's nothing more ominous than a quiet household and more than one child."

He hadn't felt a damn thing over the link, something that had become a subtle background white noise, politely ignored for the most part... Even if they were adults now (somehow...) it still created a small, exquisite pressure behind his eyes preemptively.

When the knock came, he didn't even question who.]

Enter.

Edited 2016-01-27 04:04 (UTC)

[ Miles lets one last thin wail of betrayal go up over their link before sighing, and turning to meet his father. (As if he'd planned to do any less, really. This is his mess to clean up, and not Gregor's.)

He opens the door cautiously, holding it for Gregor behind him. But he ultimately doesn't wait before the Emperor enters to get started. (Belatedly, he realizes that his forearm is still bruised from the encounter - Aral might even have felt some small portion of it with their pain-sharing plan - and turns to keep it on the opposite side from his father. ]

To start out with - everyone's all right.

[ Clearly the most comforting opening. ]

[The contact alone wouldn't bother him-- touching, say, Ivan this way, if for some inexplicable reason Ivan felt beset by woes over failed attempts at finding a wife, would not bother Gregor at all. He's not that besieged by his own nightmares. But when he touches Miles, he always wants more. Always feels the urge to increase, to go further, and it scares him because he doesn't know where or if that would stop.

Sometimes his desires scare him. Turned on Miles, on a real person instead of just an abstract, awful fantasy, scares him twice as much. It makes his stomach twist, but he doesn't pull away.

That Miles thinks this is the most indefensible topic is laughable to Gregor, in the most horrible of ways, because he knows why Miles think that and he also knows just how easily his own brain is preoccupied with him physically these days. Such as three seconds ago, point of fact. Gregor has to struggle with himself on what to say and how to say it without stepping over a line he doesn't dare to cross.]

There's nothing wrong with you, [he ends up saying, again as he has before, in curbed frustration. You're driving me crazy with how much I want you, and you think no one else is going to see what I do? Thankfully, he manages to keep that in the corner of his mind that he now keeps from Miles.] You wouldn't want to be with someone who bought into rot like that, anyway. You're not a curiosity.

[Miles, really.

Gregor drifts in after him looking much less cautious but rather more tired. At this opening he shoots Miles a fondly exasperated look, and then puts in more reassuringly,] We are, actually. Something rather dramatic happened last night and it's past time to give you a sit rep.

[Truthfully, he's not as sanguine about not advocating for the Vorkosigans as he's trying to put across. Gregor wants for them to be happy-- all four of them, as he really does include him in that number, admittedly with a proviso for if he declares himself not one of them, he will amend his view. Or he'll try to. He just has so many emotional memories tied up in this family, it's extremely difficult for Gregor to separate everything. That he's managed to so far is real testament to how strictly he maintains his Imperial facade.]

I don't want to, exactly, but I think it would do you good to see it. [He sounds self-conscious, but accepting. More gently,] You'll have to open up.

[And he is simultaneously bracing himself for the resulting rush of anxiety he expects to feel.]

[ Miles doesn't get all of that - any of that, really - but senses that there's something churning, and something frustrating Gregor just below the surface of Miles' vision. He has to bite back the urge to go looking, to just peel layer by layer back and see for himself. (The urge sours anyway when he pictures it in any level of detail; it feels too much like harm, like an absolute betrayal of Gregor's privacy. Which it would be. No, he must not harm Gregor under any circumstances.)

The result, though, is more moodiness, and no particular comfort being drawn from Gregor's words. His mind skips back over that sharp spot and digs in, hard, as it catches on the painful memory. ]

I thought I did. It didn't work out well. [ Quickly, past it -- ] And "nothing wrong" is a very long way from anything positive. I might manage unique.

Edited (whoa bad html fuckup) 2016-01-27 04:27 (UTC)

[Both eyebrows arc at Miles' brilliant opener, and didn't seem to find any lowering at Gregor's confirmation. He either hadn't particularly noticed the new ache from Miles, or simply took it for one of his own, as there hadn't been inquiry or interruption.

He set aside the comm and simple notepad beside it, attention sharp, studying each in turn.]

Let's hear it then.

[It would break something inviolate and very difficult to repair for Miles to do that; Gregor already only teeters over into luxuriating acceptance of this mental link because he trusts Miles absolutely, unconditionally, to not only accept with equanimity anything he feels or hears from Gregor but also not to harm him. He has so very little that he gets to keep for himself, and it is precious to him, even the festering parts. He shows them only deliberately.

There's no possible way to respond to this without exposing himself somehow. Yet he can't not respond to it, can't deflect when he feels how deeply this runs in Miles as a wound. That he'd wanted someone who 'bought into that rot' and it 'didn't work out well'-- The implications there make him quietly, deeply angry at this unknown woman. How long has this bled, unnoticed? The feeling of being torn in two worsens until he imagines he can feel himself break in half.

His hand retracts, again without totally conscious thought, and both of his land in his lap in a tight, composed grip.] I'm finding it very hard right now not to say something I'm going to dearly regret later. [His churning frustration bubbles up into a peak.]

Edited 2016-01-27 04:29 (UTC)

[ And the anxiety is there - of course it is, it is going to be a long time before it's not there - but it's tempered by less harsh emotions. There's little bit of empathetic discomfort over Gregor's discomfort, and more than a bit of regular nervousness over whether or not things are going to be awkward - anxiety of a sort, though of a sort very different than the screaming terror that had rattled through him earlier when he'd thought of Ser Galen coming here. And stronger than anything else is honest curiosity. He simply wants to know what Gregor will tell him.

Occasionally, his reactions are very, very normal.

All right. ]

[ The break was minor, anyway, and Miles himself had just filed it away with the rest, to be tended to eventually. The bruise is more alarming than the pain. He finds himself unconsciously straightening, like he's giving a debriefing, or answering one of his father's veiled tests. ]

It turns out I have a clone after all. And he is here. Upstairs, actually.

[Gregor feels this is more than enough of a bomb to react to without rushing into and he's an assassin deliberately sharpened against you with malicious personal exaction, and he'd like to kill me and Miles as well, but oh, it's okay, I've sworn him to Our service.

No, he stands where he is, wordless. One thing at a time.]

[ He would never, in the end; the temptation, however it may have spiked, can only be temporary.

A small starburst of despair seems to go off in his head at that. Gregor retracting, Gregor frustrated, Gregor not wanting to say something he'd regret - where is that ultimate acceptance that Miles had felt during that first disastrous power test? Is it gone? Does it not apply here, on this alternate level? He'd fed Gregor the worst first not really to make him stumble, but rather to selfishly pursue comfort. He can only blame himself if he finds Gregor's reaction to be only a reasonable one, after all.

(The sharp spot catches and bleeds again; he finds himself ruthlessly dragging his mind back over it, picturing himself on Beta Colony and feeling very desperate indeed.)

Without a word, he reaches for the bottle again. Takes a drink. Forces it to puncture something of this painful feeling bubbling up inside of him, before it obscures everything. This isn't Gregor's fault. His, all his, and this is a stupid conversation to be having. What was he expecting anyway? For Gregor to tell him he was pretty or something? ]

It's all right. Let's trot out something you can defend, then, and we'll both feel better.

[The composure cracks for just a moment. An absolutely bewildered state lingers both in expression and posture.

It hadn't been long in his memory that they'd come to the well reasoned, if troubled decision NOT to have more children, and a clone was so far out of the norm for Barrayaran that questions piled up with no organization or order. From the simplest of What? and Why? to the almost plantive From here, or home?]

I think, [The words were careful.] It would be best to start from the beginning.

[The trouble is, Gregor wants to tell him he's pretty in a thousand articulate, well-chosen words. Pretty is the least of it, pretty is juvenile and shallow and stupid and most of all effeminate, and there is nothing remotely feminine about Miles and that is the problem. Because Gregor is hopelessly, head over arse obsessed with him, anyway.

There's huge swathes of pain Miles is ruthlessly subjecting himself to as if it's his due course, and the worst of it is how little he shows outwardly, so much like Gregor himself with that coping mechanism that seeing it scrapes along his nerves. Because with that one bare hint Gregor can see the whole, abhorrent scope of it: he's trained in understanding people on an intuitive level and the whole mess unfolds before his eyes, practically, though of course he doesn't know what lengths it'd driven Miles to, that he can still see the reverberations is telling enough. That he thinks Gregor can't say anything here because he'll confirm that damn woman who raked him over the coals and didn't come close to appreciating him--

The whole dam breaks at once.]

You are so absurdly blind, [bursts out of him roughly, and his hand shoots out and snatches the wine bottle away from him, eyes blazing.] I can barely think for how bloody attractive you are sometimes and you think I agree with whoever did that to you?

[ There's a mess, even more so than just throwing his at Aral to see what happens. He blows out his breath in one long exhale and tries to figure out a point to come in that is sensical without being ridiculous. ]

That - is the beginning, more or less. I came back to find him in the kitchen. He is very nearly an exact copy, those Komarran bastards must have destroyed him to make him match.

[ A fiercely hot protective impulse goes through him. Every surgery he had, every broken bone, not to mention the injustice of inflicting his own crippled body on someone intentionally. ]

[ What?

He can't have heard that right. He fights back, rather abruptly, the urge to laugh like a goddamn maniac. The surprise does at least knock both sharpness and despair out of him in an instant, but he can't seem to find the right emotion to fill in the empty space. Gregor feels sincere. He can't possibly be -- Miles reaches ineffectively for the bottle as it's pulled away from him. ]

Gregor, no. You don't have to do this.

[ Because even now, all Miles sees is that Gregor must be drumming this up to soothe Miles' stupid, poisoned ego. That's a more logical explanation than Gregor having actual romantic feelings for him. ]

[Gregor hadn't dared to show this to Mark yesterday (or this morning) but with Miles feeling it already, he echoes back a reflection of that protectiveness. Gregor's runs quieter and steadier than Miles's, obviously, not just from his personality but with that distance of association. It's not his clone-brother.

But what he'd felt and seen was more than enough for him to relinquish his suspicions and turn instead to his second instinct: wanting to protect him. Miles isn't alone in that at all.]

I don't have the whole story, but what I do know is horrific, [Gregor says quietly.] It's a complicated Komarran plot to engender chaos on Barrayar and provide them an opportunity to gain independence. The word he used for himself was programmed.

You're right, [he retorts, cold.] I don't. So don't insult me by questioning my sincerity.

[God, what is he doing? Gregor feels drunk. He's definitely not drunk, he's only had two glasses of wine. He does feel exhausted, and very fed up, and not in the mood at all to keep fighting with himself and being tormented over his feelings for Miles. Seeing Miles in so much pain that he could assuage himself was the last straw.

He can't stand it, seeing him like that, and he's seen him like that so often and so much but ever since he'd-- he'd fallen for him it had sharpened into a scalpel that sliced him right across the quick. Gregor feels that he takes on his pain more than just physically, now; except feeling it doesn't make him morose, like his own does. It makes him angry. It makes him want to lash out with careful precision and take apart whatever had made him that way, and then return home to put Miles back together. Only there's nowhere else to direct it here but out, diffusely, spilling everything.

He's never felt this strongly before, and it scares the hell out of him; he's riding a tidal wave and is dreading what it's going to be like coming down. Miles can undoubtedly feel some of the magnitude of emotion cresting inside him.]

I am junking up this beautiful community with this junk

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(MILES + ARAL)

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