[ Bastien laughs, so tickled he nearly gurgles. (He’s also full up on earnest declarations of feeling for the evening, so they’re both spared an explanation of how unnecessary that interference would be.) It takes him a good thirty seconds to laugh, take another drink, and mosey back to the point. ]
Uhhh. What was…
[ The question. But he remembers on his own. ]
Mmm. I don’t know what would guarantee it. Sometimes people are upset [ or drunk ] and they say things they probably don’t mean. Like Alexandrie.
[ He would never mention it, if not for the liquor seeping in. Even with it, he realizes he shouldn’t have, and there’s a puzzled, frustrated pause before he resumes. ]
But if they mean it, if it’s a—a pattern. I had a friend once. Sort of. You know. [ A friend, and one who barely knew anything honest about him. ] He was one of those… aspiring tortured geniuses. A writer. Kind of an asshole, but I hung in there.
Then he was unhappy with something he’d written, and I told him I thought it was good, and he went off about—how of course I liked it, I didn’t know any better, I didn’t know anything, I… All of that. So I dumped a box of his drafts out of his window. Just into the street. I think he got most of them back. But we were finished.
[ And, with belated defensive embarrassment, ] I was young. If it happened now I’d do something subtler.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-07-08 08:29 pm (UTC)Uhhh. What was…
[ The question. But he remembers on his own. ]
Mmm. I don’t know what would guarantee it. Sometimes people are upset [ or drunk ] and they say things they probably don’t mean. Like Alexandrie.
[ He would never mention it, if not for the liquor seeping in. Even with it, he realizes he shouldn’t have, and there’s a puzzled, frustrated pause before he resumes. ]
But if they mean it, if it’s a—a pattern. I had a friend once. Sort of. You know. [ A friend, and one who barely knew anything honest about him. ] He was one of those… aspiring tortured geniuses. A writer. Kind of an asshole, but I hung in there.
Then he was unhappy with something he’d written, and I told him I thought it was good, and he went off about—how of course I liked it, I didn’t know any better, I didn’t know anything, I… All of that. So I dumped a box of his drafts out of his window. Just into the street. I think he got most of them back. But we were finished.
[ And, with belated defensive embarrassment, ] I was young. If it happened now I’d do something subtler.