kore_logs | i must live with my quiet rage

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i must live with my quiet rage

Who: The Hulk and Tony // Bruce and Tony
Where: Out by the woods. // Their house
When: Day 46
What: Tony wants to talk to the Hulk and then also ask his help to catch a saber-tooth cat thanks to an ill-advised bet with Party. // After successfully catching the cat, Bruce and Tony regroup at their house.

Note: You're welcome to have your character hear/notice the Hulk from a distance, but he won't be bothering anyone but Tony (and the log is closed).

Bruce needs to stay calm, but trying to stay calm when he's about to let the Hulk out for something as mundane as a chat isn't easy. He can barely wrap his mind around the concept of letting him out just to... let him out. The cat thing after the talk is weirdly comforting even though it shouldn't be, but it seems like if he's letting the Hulk out, it should be for something... well, Hulk-worthy. That seems like the responsible thing to do, to keep a monster like that concealed as often as possible -- that's been Bruce's life since it happened, his number one goal. Right behind that was keeping out of the hands of the military.

He can accept throwing that away for the sake of saving people, but this... This is so different. He keeps sliding back in his conviction and willingness to do this, but maybe... maybe Tony's right. Maybe the Hulk is... more than a monster. Or not a monster at all.

By the time they get to the woods, he's almost relieved he doesn't have to think about this anymore. He takes a breath and then tugs his shirt off, toes out of his shoes. He's actually wearing the pants Sharon got him for Fake Christmas because they are, indeed, extra-estrechi. He starts to reach to take his watch off, but stops once his fingers slide too much and he realizes there's no fastening because it isn't a watch. Ha. Good. He hopes these bracelets are expensive. Screw you, scientists.

There's a thought to end on. He needs some anger to tug him out, but not too much, so he teases that thought out and then he's changing slowly, his skin turning green and his body reshaping itself, bones growing and muscles expanding. It's still not pleasant, but it's a far cry from acid being poured on his brain, and far more fluid than when he's fighting it off the whole time.

And then Bruce stops having conscious thoughts, and the Hulk raises his head, taking in a lungful of air. Oh, this place still. The woods have metal Hulks in them that aren't better than him no matter what they might've been made out of, so there. He turns and spots Metal-less Man, and no one else. There's no sense of urgency, no smell of a fight in the air, no tension.

"What's going on?"

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Bruce couldn't say what he's really feeling. Tired, maybe hollowed out, maybe contemplative, but that's like a non-feeling. Usually after a Hulking out, he's tired and just wants to relax somewhere, but this time it's even more intense than usual. It's like he has an emotional hangover.

He's glad when Tony slides into place behind him, and he leans against him gratefully, tilting his head back; he pulls Tony's arms tighter around him because he doesn't need a loose embrace here. He needs to feel like this body's his own again and that he belongs in it.

Tony's words, though, are kind of strange. Not strange in the sense that Bruce doesn't like to hear them, but they seem to come out of nowhere. It's easier to focus on that than on how they make him feel. He turns his head to kiss Tony, his response to the sentiment and the promise, and then he shifts so he can see Tony's face.

"What makes you say that?"

Once he knows that the touch is welcome, Tony doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms more firmly around Bruce. If simply by holding him like this, he could somehow shield him from the world and the wounds it has inflicted upon him, he would. He knows he can’t. He knows they can’t hide in this kitchen forever, and that when they leave, he can’t be the shield he thinks Bruce needs. But he thinks that even still, he’ll try.

He’s just as eager to kiss him as he is to embrace him, and he’d like nothing more than to keep kissing him. Tony knows talking about the Hulk isn’t always the easiest thing for Bruce to do; the last thing he wants to do is upset him, and judging from how uncomfortable Tony thinks he looks, he’s afraid that that might be unavoidable.

“The truth,” he begins, lips curving upward into a brief smile. “And something the Hulk said to me makes me think it’s something you needed to hear. Possibly multiple times. While prove the veracity of my words. It’s not just empty talk.”

And now he’s rambling. “Want me to start at the beginning or just skip to the highlights?”

Bruce is uncomfortable; it's hard for him to say if he's upset, but uncomfortable's a good word. He's not going to complain about it or expect or even want anything different for himself though because sometimes discomfort is necessary, and sometimes you have to push through it in order to get past it. He'll spend this conversation in Tony's arms; that will help. He backs Tony up just enough so he can turn around and lean his back against the counter, and then he pulls Tony back in.

"The beginning. Either way you'll phrase it in a shocking and/or rambling manner, so might as well go chronologically." He smiles lightly, though it doesn't reach his eyes.

Has Bruce been alone? Yes. How much of that was self-inflicted? Most of it. He pushed people away and kept himself closed off, and now opening up is the rarity, the exception, not the norm.

Bruce knows him too well. For once, that’s a good thing. It means, he hopes, that if he says something badly, because he always says everything badly when it’s important, Bruce won’t take offense to it. He fully intends to try not to do that, however; though rambling his way through it is definitely likely.

Arms settling around Bruce’s waist, tight enough so that he knows he isn’t going to let him go, Tony’s hands move over his back, kneading at it in an absently gentle way. Okay, from the beginning. He can do this.

“I wanted to talk to him about us. You and me being together. Make sure he was okay with it.” That almost sounds like he’s suggesting that Bruce has to ask the Hulk’s permission to do anything in his life and he hastens to clarify. “You know, if we were in the middle of something and he decided that your racing heartbeat meant you were in trouble, I didn’t want him showing up and wondering what the hell he was doing naked with his—That’s what I was doing. Before the tiger hunt. And I was clear that I meant sex, not, you know, basket weaving or whatever. And he’s okay with it. He told me I could have you, to take you and make you ‘better,’ which I’m assuming means we can play out some sexy doctor-nurse clinic fantasy now.”

Raising his eyebrows, he smiles and hopes to hell that was okay. Because the rest, that makes him sad and he doesn't know how Bruce is going to take hearing him talk about it.

Reminding Bruce of the possibility that he could Hulk out during sex is not really a good way to frame the conversation, no. He gets pulled out of the moment there when Tony brings that up, not that he'd really been excited to be in the moment leading up to that. Tony talking to the Hulk about the two of them doesn't even make sense to Bruce. Who cares what he thinks? If he thinks at all, if he...

There's a lot of hatred there, and Bruce is only starting to realize that that might be unhealthy, largely thanks to Tony. He tries to shake off where he'd tensed up, and he pulls Tony closer, making sure he stays here, making sure he doesn't leave Bruce alone with this. Because Bruce does pull away, draw into himself, does prefer to handle things on his own. He'd done it out of necessity, and he's still not entirely convinced that it's not the best way to go about handling his... life, but he'll try, for Tony.

"I don't even know how to... I don't think there's anyone else in the world who would've thought of that, Tony."

He isn’t going anywhere. Especially now. Not when he’s afraid Bruce is going to cut and run. When he pulls him closer, Tony just tightens his grip on him. Short of breaking his arm or kneeing him in the groin, there’s no way he’s getting away from him now.

“That’s because I’m a genius,” he says brightly. Too cheerful, really, and he sobers fast. “He told me other things, too. Like he thinks I only want to be friends with him because people think I’m a freak too. That me and…” God, he does not know how to bring this up. He’s read the file. He knows about Bruce’s girlfriend.

Swallowing around a dry throat, he tentatively continues. “That me and Betty are the only friends he has. That he likes people and wants to like them, but he’s—He’s alone and he doesn’t want to be. He’s lonely. And I think sad and scared, and I promised him that as long as I lived, he wouldn’t be. Neither one of you will be.”

Betty is... Well, it's hard for him to say what she is. He's never stopped loving her. Even now, even with Tony, he holds his love for her apart from his feelings for Tony. If she turned up here though, he wouldn't dump Tony for her. Really, he'd be torn between the two of them, and he thinks what he and Tony have is even different than what Betty had with that Samson guy. Maybe he'd feel guilty for that if he let himself think about it, but he and Betty have said their goodbyes now, twice. He wants her to have her own life; he wants her to put him behind her.

Bruce is uncomfortable, and he looks it too; he'd been trying not to retreat into himself, but that does it; he can't meet Tony's eyes anymore, and his shoulders hunch, his body pulling in on itself. He's pulling away from Tony, shrinking in and away from the idea that the Hulk could have his own wants and needs. Who cares about them? Why would anyone care about what he needs? What he feels?

Tony, apparently.

"Sounds like you two had a good talk," he mumbles so he can say something. He clears his throat and tries to push Tony off him instead of pulling him closer. "Do you need help with the tiger?"

He's running from this conversation.

And now he’s trying to run. Let him do it or force him to stay? Tony has his own problems. He has a heap of issues miles high and his tried and true method of dealing with them is to avoid them completely. If someone brings them up, he snaps, he fights, he changes the subject, leaves the room, gets drunk, or destroys something. Anything and everything he can do to get away from the conversation and not be forced to think about it.

The right thing to do, the considerate thing, is probably to let him do it. To let him go and step back and allow him his privacy and his peace of mind.

Tony’s never been good at doing the right thing.

“Don’t you dare run away from me,” he snaps, hands fisting in back of Bruce’s shirt. “I had to stand there and listen to a part of you tell me that you’re lonely. I don’t care if he’s big and green, I don’t care if he doesn’t always speak in full sentences or if he has hands bigger than my head. He’s still part of you. He comes from you. And if I have to hear that any part of you is alone, you’re damn well going to stay here and listen to me tell you that you’re not alone.”

Edited 2013-03-08 02:34 (UTC)

Bruce's expression is sharp and forbidding, almost uncharacteristically so, but it isn't, not really. Bruce isn't afraid to delineate boundaries, and this is a boundary he intends to keep intact.

"He's not me," he says fiercely. "He's his own... his own thing. We share a body, but he isn't a part of me. Okay? Don't conflate the two of us." The Hulk is angry and vicious and unpredictable, uncontrollable; he's everything Bruce has never let himself become.

"And I don't care if he is lonely." There, he said it. He's a little afraid of Tony's reaction, honestly. "I don't care, just like he's never cared that he's ruined my life, my career, everything."

It’s on the tip of his tongue to immediately shoot back with something sarcastic. Something along the lines of: Oh, right, you’re possessed by an alien lifeform that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Of course. How did I forget that? It’s not that he doesn’t understand what Bruce is saying, and it isn’t like he thinks the Hulk is just Bruce pretending to be someone else, but they are connected and Tony doesn’t believe that constantly denying that fact is helping with anything.

And then Bruce follows it up with that and Tony’s temper snaps.

“Oh, right, I forgot.” The sarcasm is so thick he can practically taste it on his tongue, bitter and sharp. “Your life is completely destroyed. There’s not a damn good thing in it, is there, Bruce?” Now he lets him go and steps back, sharply turning away from him to retrieve the tiger’s water.

“I feel for you. I do. It must be terrible not to have anything worthwhile in your life. To live this horrible existence with nothing and no one, completely ruining everything around you. How about me and the thousands of people in New York who are still alive because you’re forced to continue this shell of a life send you our condolences.” Starting to head toward the living room, he pauses to spin around, sloshing water all over the floor. Somehow, he hasn’t started yelling yet, but his voice is so sharp he might as well be.

“Actually no, better yet, the world. Because it would be overrun with fucking aliens if it wasn’t for you. We’d all be dead. Space whales would rule the world. But too fucking bad for us, right? At least you wouldn’t have to have all of this shit.”

Oh, crap. He physically feels Tony's absence, and it hurts, and it's cold, and it leaves Bruce hollowed out and hurting more than anything to do with the Hulk. It's not a good time though; picking at the Hulk is like picking at a wound that's festering and has no hope of healing any time soon, and that's what Tony was doing. That's what Tony keeps doing, has always done, and maybe Bruce should be used to that. He can't let go of the hope that he might one day eventually convince Tony that he's wrong, though. The Hulk is wrong and never should've happened.

He scrubs his hands over his face, trying to rally himself again, and then he's following after him.

"That isn't what I said, Tony. You're the only worthwhile thing in my life." What he may have done to save people in New York seems moot. He ought to save people to make up for what he's done, for what he's brought into the world.

"And maybe he brought us together." He stops and closes his eyes before he opens them again and holds his hands out. "Okay, I can accept that. I can thank him for that. But am I supposed to ever, for one second, feel grateful that I carry him around in me? That if I get pushed hard enough in the wrong direction I can turn into my worst nightmare version of myself?"

By which he means his raw self, his self subjected to its basest needs and wants. Rage and anger, those are some of them; loneliness, that's another, but he doesn't want to attribute that one to the Hulk. It'll make it harder to hate him.

He doesn’t want to fight with him. He doesn’t want to fight at all. But sometimes, Tony thinks Bruce needs someone to fight for him. For all of him. And because of that, he can’t let it go. He stops walking. He faces him. But he doesn’t let it go.

“Which nightmare version is that, Bruce?” he asks, but this time he softens the edge of his voice, forces the anger to recede. “The one that saves peoples’ lives? The one that lets people ride on his back? The one that jumps in front of gunfire and shrugs off the bullets so he can protect people? Is it the one that pulled me into a hug because I promised to always be his friend? Is it the one that took the time to try to help some sad bastard laugh and feel just a little better about his life?”

Harping on the Hulk isn’t the way to go and he knows it. “I know shit happened. I saw the footage. But before isn’t now. And I know you lost everything because of him. Your life, Betty, your career, your reputation, your freedom from being hounded by the military. I get that. Trust me, I get it.” And proof of that understanding is still brightly glowing in the middle of his chest.

“But you’re still alive. You still have a life. You can still make a life. And if you would just try for half a second to see beyond how much anger you have toward him, then maybe he wouldn’t have to be a nightmare at all. Maybe you would never have to be afraid of an incident again because there wouldn’t be any more incidents.”

And that, right there? That's a blow of a different kind, different from feeling as if he's pushing someone he cares for away, or he's disappointing that person. This cuts straight through to what he usually keeps private. People aren't supposed to see how angry the Hulk makes him, no matter how silly that notion might be; he doesn't like it when people see him angry at all. It's embarrassing.

His hands come together in front of him, and he starts wringing them without even noticing.

"And I'm supposed to accept a timeshare life with him?" he asks softly, shrinking in further on himself.

“What? No. I’m not—It’s your life, Bruce. It’s always been your life. I’m not talking about hammering out a joint-custody agreement. That would be—No.” Now isn’t the time to bring up kissing the Hulk. That much, at least, he knows.

Floundering for half a second, trying to figure out what to do with the bowl that isn’t just dropping it on the floor, he finally sets it on the counter and crosses over to Bruce. There’s too much hand-wringing for his liking and if his shoulders hunch a little further, Tony’s afraid he’ll disappear.

Reaching out to cover Bruce’s hands with his own, Tony tries to catch his eye. “I’m saying maybe you don’t have to be in pieces forever. He came from you. That accident didn’t meld some outside creature to your body. It turned some piece of you into him, right? So maybe that piece can get fitted back in with the rest of you.”

You don't have to be in pieces forever. Bruce has spent around seven years like this, and he's never thought of himself and the Hulk like that. Not once, not ever. He doesn't make Tony chase him for eye contact, especially not after that, and he looks up, but there's a pain and an uncertainty in his eyes that he can't begin to hide.

"How do you do this? You know us both so well." He could leave it at that and he almost does, but he closes his eyes and draws up his nerve and gets the words out. "You have so much faith in us. I don't know what I ever did to earn any of that, Tony."

Tony doesn’t think he’s doing anything special. He’s just talking. He’s being honest in a way he usually isn’t, and he’s making an effort to be more coherent than usual, but overall, he doesn’t think it’s special. It’s just observation.

“Bruce, it made you green. It didn’t make your personality do a one-eighty.” If there’s one thing he hates right now, it’s the pain in Bruce’s eyes. But he hasn’t the first idea how to get rid of it. “I don’t need to have faith in the fact that you’re a good man. I see that plain as day. You’re proof of that. So how’s it any different for him? So he’s green and he’s like, eight feet tall, so what? He’s just sexy green exotic you. Like if you were an alien on some sci-fi show.”

Is that too flippant? That might be too flippant. “And okay, yes, he did a lot of bad things. But Bruce, so have I, when I was younger and dumber and didn’t understand the way the world works. So if the first thing you see in your life is some asshole shooting at you, what’re you going to do? Try to talk to him? Or are you going to be so hurt and scared that you lash out?” Which is a fair description of what he thinks the Hulk’s initial moments were like, after having viewed SHIELD’s file on him.

“We don’t change, we don’t get better, until we learn better. Give yourself a chance here, Bruce. Stop listening to the people who keep telling you that you’re a monster. They’re idiots. And obviously they don’t know you if they’re going to say shit like that in the first place.”

Yeah, but the number one person Bruce has had to deal with calling him a monster post-incident has been... Bruce. He shakes his head when Tony starts trying to compare the things he's done, the person he's been, to the Hulk, and he slips a hand free of Tony's so he can hold their hands together in a pile, squeezing them together gently, but then he can't argue with Tony's last point. People don't grow until they learn; he knows that pretty well, doesn't he?

"It isn't as easy for me to see him... me, us, the way you do, Tony." He drops his eyes and bites his lip, trying to figure out how to answer, trying to find where it fits in Bruce's philosophy of himself, of life. In a way it's kind of like Tetris, he's realizing. He thought he only needed straight pieces and was trying to cram those in, waiting desperately for something that's probably never going to come to complete him, when there's a slightly different shape coming in that could work instead, if only he could accept it.

And who said Tetris was a waste of time?

"We're lucky to have you," he says quietly. "He and I both. I'm pretty sure he and I hate each other and I'm not sure how that could ever be resolved, but you're brave to want to stand between us."

This is inching precariously close to Tony’s own tangle of personal issues, but he’s just stomped all over Bruce’s without so much as an apology. He can’t, in good faith, derail the conversation now just because it makes him a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not trying to speak for him. I have hard enough time with my own feelings, I’m not going to try to tell other people what to feel. But I just…” He thinks about what the Hulk has said, what he hasn’t said, and the things that Bruce has. Quietly, as gently as he can, he continues. “Sometimes, Bruce, it’s easier to hate someone than it is to admit that you’re not good enough. Because hate and anger are a hell of a lot easier to deal with than the hurt that comes from the rejection of the one person you want most in the world to accept you.”

The Hulk isn’t Howard Stark. The acceptance of a father isn’t like the acceptance of the self. But Tony has long since accepted himself and his laundry list of flaws. Equating his feelings toward his father to the Hulk’s feelings toward Bruce aren’t the same at all, but it’s the closest thing he has for a comparison.

“And before you start handing out the medals,” he adds, because he needs a moment of levity. “It’s not bravery. That implies that I’m terrified but I’m doing it anyway. I’m not scared of either one of you. And I’m not ever going to be."

Bruce frowns when Tony gets serious because he's trying to see where Tony's talking about him, but he mostly just sees Tony. It clicks for him where Tony might be pulling all his faithful determination from; maybe he wants a place to heap it, since he can't heap it on himself, and Tony's full of so much faith and idealism that it's breathtaking. And it must be exhausting for him.

"Oh, and that somehow makes you unexceptional?" He almost rolls his eyes but catches himself. "Because you're one of only two people in the world who I could really believe have felt that way, the entire time they've known me."

He knows there are people here who are accepting of him, but honestly he doesn't know if he can count them in this when they don't really know what the Hulk is capable of.

But if Tony's going to dig deep enough to compare his relationship with his father to the Hulk's relationship with Bruce -- it takes Bruce a few seconds to see how Tony's framing his argument, but he eventually gets here -- then he can at least pay him the respect of listening to it and not just brushing it off.

"You think the Hulk needs my approval?" he asks, confusion clear. "Why would he care?"

Tony is not a qualified mental health professional and he’s starting to think he’s wandering into territory that requires it. Sure, he can read up on it, or could if he was back at home, but that doesn’t make him qualified to dispense advice. All he has, he thinks, is the benefit of perspective, and that perspective exists because he knows Bruce and he knows the Hulk and he doesn’t have either one’s poor opinion of the other.

He’s also not a simpering idiot who’s afraid of something that’s different from the norm.

“Why wouldn’t he care? Half the time, we can’t stand it when people we don’t even know don’t like us. But people who do know us? People who live with us? We can pretend we don’t care all we like, but you know we do. And for him, it’s got to be a thousand times more important. You’re a part of him, Bruce. Not in some New Age, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo bullshit way. Really a part of him.”

How many times has he heard the saying you’re your own worst enemy? Tony can’t possibly begin to count it. But it’s a lot. He knows that. And he thinks that in Bruce and the Hulk’s case, it couldn’t be truer.

“That whole ‘you can’t say anything worse than what I’ve already said to myself’ line we give people who try to insult us? In your case, that’s probably more poignant than it could be from anyone else.”

Everything Tony's saying makes sense, but Bruce has never... thought it, or said it to himself, or even let himself believe it for a second. The Hulk might hate Bruce as much as Bruce hates him -- that makes a lot of sense, but the idea that the Hulk might just want Bruce to accept him? He's compared himself to the scientist who poisons himself and spawns an evil alternate identity, but -- well -- the one where the scientist makes the monster has never seemed as apt. Because that story, the real story, is about the monster being the one with the feelings and the scientist being the mad one.

Bruce's eyes drift past Tony as he reconsiders his role in all of this. He doesn't think he's wrong or crazy; the Hulk does hurt people. But if he accepted him? Would that lessen... anything?

"Okay," he says, nodding, coming back into the moment. "Okay. I see what you mean. I'll try." And he finds a smile for him as he tries to shake off the discomfort of the realization that maybe he really has been more of a monster than he even knew.

"And he told you all this? You must've had some conversation."

It would be easier if he could just say yes. Yes, the Hulk said all of those things earlier, just in his own terse way, and that would be that, all wrapped up in a nice, neat little package. But he can’t say that without lying and he’s not going to lie.

“Not all at once. Not just today. It’s like, every time I talk to him, I get a little more of the story. The loneliness and the desire to protect people, that happened today. But I guess it’s been happening more than just now, since he’s been helping people and giving them rides – which I’m still jealous about since he isn’t giving me rides, by the way – since that day he brought you back.”

He inches closer, ever so carefully sliding an arm around Bruce’s waist, not knowing if he wants space or not but refusing not to make the effort. “That was pretty much all it was today. We hugged, I kissed him – not like what you’re thinking, there weren’t any tongues, it wasn’t like the way I kiss you, it was like kissing family, and I told you I was going to do it weeks ago, don’t be mad at me, I wasn’t cheating on you, I was just trying to make a point – and then we went and caught the tiger. Not by his tail. That would’ve been animal cruelty. I don’t go in for that.”

Bruce doesn't know if he needs space or not; see, the weird thing is that the main person he needs space from is himself, or the Hulk, or both, but he can't actually split himself into two. That would be strangely convenient, actually, but no, for the moment he's just in this one body. So when Tony holds him again, Bruce tenses but relaxes into it after a moment. He's not comfortable in his own body, but he's comfortable around Tony.

He's relaxed all the way until Tony says he kissed the Hulk, and then he tenses again, but Tony rambles his way through enough of an explanation that Bruce looks less indignant by the end of it.

"That was pretty much all, and by the way I kissed him?" Bruce summarizes, eyebrows raising, but he doesn't actually look upset. Or any less sick than he's looked for this entire conversation, but. He settles his hands on Tony's arms and squeezes lightly before he pulls him closer. He's quiet, thinking, and when he finally speaks up, his voice is soft.

"Tony, when you look at me -- when you looked at me, when we first met. It was me you saw first, right? Not him?"

He feels that tension and thinks that maybe he's gone too far, but then it fades and he thinks maybe disaster has been averted. He can't know for sure, but that doesn't stop him from answering Bruce the same way he would if he hadn't just confessed to kissing the Hulk.

“Actually, no,” he says thoughtfully, expression as serious as his voice. “The first time I saw you, I thought I was looking at Elvis. Like, right there, in the flesh. It was shocking, I thought he was dead, but there he was! Only, it was actually some guy named Bruce, not the King. And I mean, yeah, sometimes I still get confused, I think it’s the hair, either that or you’re possessed, but for the most part, I’m pretty sure it’s you I’m seeing.”

Rolling his eyes, he lets go of Bruce long enough to cup his face between both of his hands and hold him there so that he can look at him. Really look at him. Right in the eyes, like he could see into his soul if he tries.

“Bruce. Who else would I see but you? Even when he’s standing in front of me, I’m still looking at you. Green and bigger and with a sort of flatter nose than right now, but all I see is you.”

His smile fades a little at the end, and he reaches up to hold Tony's wrists; before he pulls his hands away, he kisses each of his palms.

"You know what I mean, Tony. Back home to anyone who knows, Bruce Banner doesn't count for anything except as a kind of pre-state for the Hulk."

He's still holding Tony's hands in his, and he lets one go to turn the other one over, palm-up, so he can trace the lines as he talks.

"I was trying to ask if I mean more to you than he does, if you like me more, but I think I can guess your answer, now that I'm thinking about it." He looks up finally, and he doesn't look upset; maybe a little sad, but this is all so new for him.

"You care for every part of me equally, right?"

i must live with my quiet rage

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