[ she nearly lets him get away with it. indeed, she takes a full moment to consider the merits of letting a clumsy excuse slide on by. in might buy her a bit of goodwill going forward for when she inevitably must tell a tall tale of her own.
in the end, she errs on the side of this strange new-found and unfairly earned camaraderie. ]
Isn't this meeting meant to be all about honesty, Ray? What a dreadful precedent to set.
[ peggy watches him. carefully. it's supposed to be about her honesty, yes, but she'll push the boundary a little if she can. see what she can't get away with. ]
[ he scowls, mock suspicion giving way slowly to real suspicion. ray's a supporter, a giver, a natural nurturer. but there's a line, even so. he can feel it drawing closer. ]
[ alright. perhaps she ought to lead with an edge of an explanation -- an implication, at least, of what's at stake for her by even agreeing to think about what he'd suggested: resetting the balance, so to speak. ]
You asked a question earlier that, when answered honestly, risks a charge of treason. Back home.
[ and her voice shows remarkable little strain as she says it, no matter the substance. ]
[ at her rhetorical question, ray's head tips -- he does have to concede the point. (he begged it, after all.) ]
That sounds pretty serious.
[ he knows it should land harder, by her own reluctance to even answer. ray knows that he's tone deaf sometimes, but he also knows that peggy's trying. she nearly looked happy coming in here, when he'd been sure she'd needed to blow off steam at him for being an impossible jerk of a boss. (he'd have let her, knowing that it was important and at the same time impersonal.) this is different, but ray is trying to understand that the gray things are even grayer in wonderland.
so, they're sharing things that specifically are uncomfortable to share. he doesn't want to talk about this-- has only actually spoken of it to gideon after the fact. and only because she'd come looking for him. between peggy's own morsel and the odd blunt pragmatism she seems to favor, ray thinks this is the right choice. ]
Rip found out that I obtained the brainwashing tech to fix him. [ he gestures as the disaster zone that is the workshop. ] He went hunting.
[ she's prepared to downplay it. prepared to explain that it should be serious, except that everyone from 'her world' seems to already know the details of her life that (by the strictest definition) should also be covered by that same blanket of confidentiality.
prepared to explain that somehow the official secrets act means next to nothing in wonderland, and that it's been an adjustment. what she's not prepared to do, it seems, is live her life by these new standards.
but it's all blown far out of the water when her poking and her prodding is gratified by an answer. peggy takes a step forward, her interest in the matter betrayed by a kind of energetic enthusiasm to piece it apart. ]
That tracks. [ it's so much easier to discuss that brainwashed version of rip hunter. much more easily discussed than the one from the last event. ] When our paths crossed, he seemed like a man with nothing to lose except for his 'new philosophy.' So it makes sense that he would disrupt those efforts.
[ peggy clears her throat. ] I haven't seen him since. [ she lies and it's a rare clumsy one but she doubts her 'boss' had caught wind of with whom she'd been spending her radio silences. ] Is he still...?
[ he's so quick to reassure her (and maybe himself) that rip was in his right mind once again, that there isn't any initial follow up he has prepared. ray's also not looking for the eye contact he's usually mindful of making.
he really doesn't want to talk about it. ray moves to lean back and give his hands something to do. the change in task gives him a shift in tone-- a very recognizable habit to someone who "worked" with him for a few days recently. ]
You know, this is kind of embarrassing. Have I asked you when you're from, yet?
[ she could smile, maybe. either at the good news -- indeed, she huffs a quiet thank god when ray suggests the man in question might be 'himself again.' twice over, she thinks, but doesn't dare approach the topic aloud. although she figures herself as a brave soul, she knows she's not yet prepared to seek rip out for a debriefing anything near to what she'd proposed with her former boss.
she's bandying around thoughts about what she could say instead, but ray asks a good question. a better question, really, than the one about her work.
so she smiles about that instead. the smile doesn't reach her eyes. ]
You haven't, no. But if you did, I'd tell you it's 1947.
[ his voice genuinely perks up at that, glad to both have successfully change the subject and also gotten a morsel of info about peggy. it makes it easier to make the trek back to a more conversational tone, too. ]
Oh, see? You're barely an antique... [ his hand pops up to paw at the ledge, attention too divided to just look where he's searching and see that the screwdriver he wants isn't there. ]
[ peggy doesn't skimp on the sarcasm: ] Oh, how kind of you to say so.
[ she shakes her head -- a bit taken aback, perhaps, by the reminder of their last conversation. last conversation before the event, she tells herself. she feels older than she is thanks to nearly (nearly) every conversation held and every recognition sparked. ]
I'm afraid you might be in the minority with that opinion. And I -- I'm sorry, but, is there something I can grab for you?
[ she's not being helpful so much as feeling an itch of frustration just watching him grope for a tool he can't find. ]
Hm? [ absent-minded, ray pops back up to process her offer while at the same time looking around for the darn thing. he both gets it and spots the tool on the worktable near to peggy. he points. ]
Thanks, yes-- the blue screwdriver right there, please. [ while waiting, he smiles. ] I've broken into top secret governmental facilities before, by the way. If it helps.
[ an obliging nod of her head -- and peggy does indeed lean to grab the screwdriver, tossing it lightly in her palm before she approaches the machine (and ray inside of it) and holds it handle-side out. ]
I don't see how it could. [ help. but it's a rough'n'glib joke. ordinarily she might have been surprised about such an admission, but a vague understanding of what the legends do allow her to imagine quite a broad scope of activities. ]
But if we're being honest, [ peg's brows raise, ] I might have done a little bit of black-site infiltration myself.
[ he mutters another thanks and then smirks in satisfaction. ha. it totally helped, peg. he pauses before setting back to work to "challenge" her admission's bad assness: ]
I ate the president's jelly beans once. And I didn't even ask.
[ -- the response is quick. knee-jerk, almost. a funny little mixture of her familiarity gained through the last event a very natural taste for competition. she doesn't much merit the debt as anything remarkable, but doctor palmer has gone and made the challenge. although this is less about 'bad-assness' and more a flexing of the old empire v. colonies spat.
who cares about a president's jellybeans, in the end. except!
except the nature of ray's work (of time travel) rings like a bell in her memory and peggy is forced to ask: ]
[ hey look sometimes he's marginally helpful. he pops up with a hunk of metal in one hand and the screwdriver in the other to follow up on that big ol name drop: ]
Wait. He owes you? You can't just leave it at that!
[ peggy offers up a bit of a theatrical shrug. she and nixon may have been contemporaries in the allied war machine, but never in any fashion that allowed them to meet or even know of each others' names. but she commits it to memory now. richard nixon, she thinks, sixties.
one never knows when this sort of information comes in handy. ]
A trifling debt, really. Accrued over cards. [ a poker game at which she'd cheated -- but then again, one hardly gets recruited into the special operations executive because of a talent for honesty. ] Do you play card games, Ray?
[ it's a minor deflection. mostly a test, she decides, of whether an abrupt question put to his own person is enough to throw him off the hunt. ]
[ yep, he says. and there is a note of consternation in her expression when hit upon by that particularly abrading form of affirmation. it bothers her more than the lying does -- or more, at least, than the one that's poorly given.
(she's not disappointed; in the end, the world needs some honest people left in it.)
but she's not always petty. if there's no reason to stress-test his lie, then she won't. instead peggy offers a brisk nod and: ] I'm glad to hear it. [ oh, but... ] Something of a card-counter, I'd expect, if I've got the proper read of you.
[ oh whoops. ray starts to shake his head, realizing he didn't make his joke very well. ]
I'm actually pretty terrible. But the Legends like to play, and they're my friends.
[ he says it so matter-of-factly, as if the question of skill has no bearing on the desire to play at all. he's unfortunately not quite self-aware enough to explain the truth of the thing-- that all of that iq and number crunching needs to be trained in specific ways to be useful. that while he's competitive, he values more than walking away from a table with the purse.
friendship is magic! ]
The next time they invite me, I could see if you could take my place. Give them a run for their money?
[ the offer of friendship, with the tone of challenge again. ray thinks he's figured peggy out... ]
well. perhaps it's a little bit unwelcome -- if only because she's stuck wondering how to digest it. there is a great deal to consider in what he says. to wonder whether he is truly that awful that he'd happily let anyone take his place, or whether instead he's bothering to take her at her word and think (for a second) that she might be capable of doing just that. giving them a run for their money.
ultimately, she's not prepared to deliver a verdict in either direction. peggy breathes in, lets her head bobble a moment, and hedges. ]
I haven't actually played a hand of anything since the war. [ that's the only marker she gives. the war. after all, she's given him a year and mentioned churchill himself; if ray can't figure it out from there, then she'd be shocked. but this time she speaks the truth -- the last time she played, the last time she'd been with friends, had been a chilly evening spent outside with the howling commandos. dernier had 'liberated' a pack of playing cards with dirty pictures on their faces.
-- it had been a few months since the valkyrie crashed, and the first time she'd laughed out loud in what felt like ages. ]
I'd hate to oversell myself and turn up rusted.
[ but that's not quite the impetus behind her refusal, should she give it. ]
[ unthinking as ever, ray leaps to reassure peggy, worried that he's missed something. worried that maybe she'd feel uncomfortable among his friends. worried that he made it seem less than proper to a woman from her time. ]
Oh, uhh-- I mean. Sara would probably there, too. And I usually sit by her.
[ on the surface, it's all so terrible innocuous. and, indeed, of what little she's conversed with miss lance...peggy's found her to be intriguing company. but there's something in the way ray proposes the possibility that snags her attention most sharply.
as though it's a compromise. or, worse, a balm.
peggy's brows knit and she seems to stiffen with the beginnings of her indignation. ]
Good for her. [ ... ] Why should that matter to me?
[ peggy has a guess -- nevertheless, she waits for him to colour in those lines for her. ]
[ he doesn't even pause to consider that her question is anything other than curious for curiosity's sake. ray's answer is peppy. helpful again! gosh he's doing real good work today. ]
Well, it won't just be a boys' club. You know, cigars and scotch and all that stuff.
[ here lies sir raymond of the palms white knight do gooder. dr palmer dove headlong into countless dangerous gambits.
and then he stepped in it like real bad rip buddy ]
Oh hey can you reach that toolkit right behind you for me?
[ ...and, all at once, she's transported to the back of the interrogation room. chief dooley (god rest his soul) turning askance and bidding her to leave because he was of the opinion that what took place on the other side of the one way mirror wasn't fit for a woman's eyes. doctor palmer says the words boys' club as though they're harmless things -- incidental, and relating to a bifurcation of leisure activities. peggy hears them and understands a very different meaning. one unintended, perhaps, but with considerable weight.
something twitches in her expression. it's an old and easy anger, and she's long ago learned to channel it well. but 'well' isn't the same as 'healthy.' ]
I rather like scotch. And rye. And bourbon. Any whiskey will do. I'm not picky.
[ however light and airy the words pretend to be, there's no mistaking the gunpowder beneath them. although it appears she might be obliging all the same because she does turn and grab for the toolbox. her heel strikes, as she crosses the space to where ray's popped out of his machine, make for some perilous punctuation. ]
The cigars, however. Oh, you're so very right about that one. But I should think that would be obvious to anyone with a decent nose.
[ and for a split second it looks as though she might very well whack him with his own toolbox (she even considers it might be poetic justice) but in the end peggy settles for merely shoving it roughly into his chest. hard, yes, and maybe hard enough to leave a welt or two. harder than she needed to -- and certainly hard enough to communicate an abundance of non-verbal outrage. all while looking him hard in his eyes. ]
[ oh hey he totally knows that shoving. it means he shoved first and didn't realize it and oh crap that's some real definite eye contact. it makes him titter nervously.
that's the kind of look he gets from mick before he's dragged through the halls in a headlock. (a look that from peggy seems like maybe mick actually lets him off pretty easy...)
ok trace back what he said what did he say how can he fix it ]
Right! Yes. Scotch is ... good? [ his gears are turning so hard it's a wonder there's no smoke in his ears. ] I mean, it's great. Whiskey too! Any of the burny ones. Very ... smoky.
Scotch, Doctor Palmer, is a whiskey. Spellings aside.
[ uh-oh. she puts 'ray' back on the shelf with any other possible familiarity and endearment and instead goes straight for the heart of a formal complaint. but, having thrust the tool box unto him, she retreats by a step.
but in the wake of her near-violence, she's left watching him. it's a clumsy mistake. was he only babbling? or was his bit about scotch and cigar mere bravado -- was there some convention, some joke, to which she wasn't privy?
whatever's gone wrong -- whatever's prompted him to talk about boy's clubs and suggest that she'd be more comfortable if miss lance was also in attendance -- peggy cares less about the source and more about what's to be done in its wake.
with a churlish huff, she adds: ] And I'll have you know I'm quite fine without the invitation. Whether it was made out of pity or -- or otherwise.
[ it's what she lands upon. pity. and she lashes out for it, too, although she's got no proof apart from the quiet offer ray made over cupcakes that she could come to him if she ever needed to talk with someone. somehow, she'd managed to twist his assurance over sara's presence into something similar.
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in the end, she errs on the side of this strange new-found and unfairly earned camaraderie. ]
Isn't this meeting meant to be all about honesty, Ray? What a dreadful precedent to set.
[ peggy watches him. carefully. it's supposed to be about her honesty, yes, but she'll push the boundary a little if she can. see what she can't get away with. ]
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You make it sound like a negotiation, Peg.
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[ alright. perhaps she ought to lead with an edge of an explanation -- an implication, at least, of what's at stake for her by even agreeing to think about what he'd suggested: resetting the balance, so to speak. ]
You asked a question earlier that, when answered honestly, risks a charge of treason. Back home.
[ and her voice shows remarkable little strain as she says it, no matter the substance. ]
So you'll forgive me if I don't give it easily.
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That sounds pretty serious.
[ he knows it should land harder, by her own reluctance to even answer. ray knows that he's tone deaf sometimes, but he also knows that peggy's trying. she nearly looked happy coming in here, when he'd been sure she'd needed to blow off steam at him for being an impossible jerk of a boss. (he'd have let her, knowing that it was important and at the same time impersonal.) this is different, but ray is trying to understand that the gray things are even grayer in wonderland.
so, they're sharing things that specifically are uncomfortable to share. he doesn't want to talk about this-- has only actually spoken of it to gideon after the fact. and only because she'd come looking for him. between peggy's own morsel and the odd blunt pragmatism she seems to favor, ray thinks this is the right choice. ]
Rip found out that I obtained the brainwashing tech to fix him. [ he gestures as the disaster zone that is the workshop. ] He went hunting.
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prepared to explain that somehow the official secrets act means next to nothing in wonderland, and that it's been an adjustment. what she's not prepared to do, it seems, is live her life by these new standards.
but it's all blown far out of the water when her poking and her prodding is gratified by an answer. peggy takes a step forward, her interest in the matter betrayed by a kind of energetic enthusiasm to piece it apart. ]
That tracks. [ it's so much easier to discuss that brainwashed version of rip hunter. much more easily discussed than the one from the last event. ] When our paths crossed, he seemed like a man with nothing to lose except for his 'new philosophy.' So it makes sense that he would disrupt those efforts.
[ peggy clears her throat. ] I haven't seen him since. [ she lies and it's a rare clumsy one but she doubts her 'boss' had caught wind of with whom she'd been spending her radio silences. ] Is he still...?
[ wrong. ]
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[ he's so quick to reassure her (and maybe himself) that rip was in his right mind once again, that there isn't any initial follow up he has prepared. ray's also not looking for the eye contact he's usually mindful of making.
he really doesn't want to talk about it. ray moves to lean back and give his hands something to do. the change in task gives him a shift in tone-- a very recognizable habit to someone who "worked" with him for a few days recently. ]
You know, this is kind of embarrassing. Have I asked you when you're from, yet?
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she's bandying around thoughts about what she could say instead, but ray asks a good question. a better question, really, than the one about her work.
so she smiles about that instead. the smile doesn't reach her eyes. ]
You haven't, no. But if you did, I'd tell you it's 1947.
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Oh, see? You're barely an antique... [ his hand pops up to paw at the ledge, attention too divided to just look where he's searching and see that the screwdriver he wants isn't there. ]
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[ she shakes her head -- a bit taken aback, perhaps, by the reminder of their last conversation. last conversation before the event, she tells herself. she feels older than she is thanks to nearly (nearly) every conversation held and every recognition sparked. ]
I'm afraid you might be in the minority with that opinion. And I -- I'm sorry, but, is there something I can grab for you?
[ she's not being helpful so much as feeling an itch of frustration just watching him grope for a tool he can't find. ]
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Thanks, yes-- the blue screwdriver right there, please. [ while waiting, he smiles. ] I've broken into top secret governmental facilities before, by the way. If it helps.
[ ray no ]
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I don't see how it could. [ help. but it's a rough'n'glib joke. ordinarily she might have been surprised about such an admission, but a vague understanding of what the legends do allow her to imagine quite a broad scope of activities. ]
But if we're being honest, [ peg's brows raise, ] I might have done a little bit of black-site infiltration myself.
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I ate the president's jelly beans once. And I didn't even ask.
[ it's how they do, riding the wave yo. ]
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[ -- the response is quick. knee-jerk, almost. a funny little mixture of her familiarity gained through the last event a very natural taste for competition. she doesn't much merit the debt as anything remarkable, but doctor palmer has gone and made the challenge. although this is less about 'bad-assness' and more a flexing of the old empire v. colonies spat.
who cares about a president's jellybeans, in the end. except!
except the nature of ray's work (of time travel) rings like a bell in her memory and peggy is forced to ask: ]
Wait. Which president?
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[ hey look sometimes he's marginally helpful. he pops up with a hunk of metal in one hand and the screwdriver in the other to follow up on that big ol name drop: ]
Wait. He owes you? You can't just leave it at that!
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one never knows when this sort of information comes in handy. ]
A trifling debt, really. Accrued over cards. [ a poker game at which she'd cheated -- but then again, one hardly gets recruited into the special operations executive because of a talent for honesty. ] Do you play card games, Ray?
[ it's a minor deflection. mostly a test, she decides, of whether an abrupt question put to his own person is enough to throw him off the hunt. ]
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Yep! All the time. I win a lot, too.
[ peggy you know the company he keeps! ]
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(she's not disappointed; in the end, the world needs some honest people left in it.)
but she's not always petty. if there's no reason to stress-test his lie, then she won't. instead peggy offers a brisk nod and: ] I'm glad to hear it. [ oh, but... ] Something of a card-counter, I'd expect, if I've got the proper read of you.
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I'm actually pretty terrible. But the Legends like to play, and they're my friends.
[ he says it so matter-of-factly, as if the question of skill has no bearing on the desire to play at all. he's unfortunately not quite self-aware enough to explain the truth of the thing-- that all of that iq and number crunching needs to be trained in specific ways to be useful. that while he's competitive, he values more than walking away from a table with the purse.
friendship is magic! ]
The next time they invite me, I could see if you could take my place. Give them a run for their money?
[ the offer of friendship, with the tone of challenge again. ray thinks he's figured peggy out... ]
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well. perhaps it's a little bit unwelcome -- if only because she's stuck wondering how to digest it. there is a great deal to consider in what he says. to wonder whether he is truly that awful that he'd happily let anyone take his place, or whether instead he's bothering to take her at her word and think (for a second) that she might be capable of doing just that. giving them a run for their money.
ultimately, she's not prepared to deliver a verdict in either direction. peggy breathes in, lets her head bobble a moment, and hedges. ]
I haven't actually played a hand of anything since the war. [ that's the only marker she gives. the war. after all, she's given him a year and mentioned churchill himself; if ray can't figure it out from there, then she'd be shocked. but this time she speaks the truth -- the last time she played, the last time she'd been with friends, had been a chilly evening spent outside with the howling commandos. dernier had 'liberated' a pack of playing cards with dirty pictures on their faces.
-- it had been a few months since the valkyrie crashed, and the first time she'd laughed out loud in what felt like ages. ]
I'd hate to oversell myself and turn up rusted.
[ but that's not quite the impetus behind her refusal, should she give it. ]
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Oh, uhh-- I mean. Sara would probably there, too. And I usually sit by her.
[ that should help. good job, ray. ]
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as though it's a compromise. or, worse, a balm.
peggy's brows knit and she seems to stiffen with the beginnings of her indignation. ]
Good for her. [ ... ] Why should that matter to me?
[ peggy has a guess -- nevertheless, she waits for him to colour in those lines for her. ]
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Well, it won't just be a boys' club. You know, cigars and scotch and all that stuff.
[ here lies sir raymond of the palms white knight do gooder. dr palmer dove headlong into countless dangerous gambits.
and then he stepped in it like real bad rip buddy ]
Oh hey can you reach that toolkit right behind you for me?
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something twitches in her expression. it's an old and easy anger, and she's long ago learned to channel it well. but 'well' isn't the same as 'healthy.' ]
I rather like scotch. And rye. And bourbon. Any whiskey will do. I'm not picky.
[ however light and airy the words pretend to be, there's no mistaking the gunpowder beneath them. although it appears she might be obliging all the same because she does turn and grab for the toolbox. her heel strikes, as she crosses the space to where ray's popped out of his machine, make for some perilous punctuation. ]
The cigars, however. Oh, you're so very right about that one. But I should think that would be obvious to anyone with a decent nose.
[ and for a split second it looks as though she might very well whack him with his own toolbox (she even considers it might be poetic justice) but in the end peggy settles for merely shoving it roughly into his chest. hard, yes, and maybe hard enough to leave a welt or two. harder than she needed to -- and certainly hard enough to communicate an abundance of non-verbal outrage. all while looking him hard in his eyes. ]
Regardless of what other parts they've got.
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that's the kind of look he gets from mick before he's dragged through the halls in a headlock. (a look that from peggy seems like maybe mick actually lets him off pretty easy...)
ok trace back what he said what did he say how can he fix it ]
Right! Yes. Scotch is ... good? [ his gears are turning so hard it's a wonder there's no smoke in his ears. ] I mean, it's great. Whiskey too! Any of the burny ones. Very ... smoky.
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[ uh-oh. she puts 'ray' back on the shelf with any other possible familiarity and endearment and instead goes straight for the heart of a formal complaint. but, having thrust the tool box unto him, she retreats by a step.
but in the wake of her near-violence, she's left watching him. it's a clumsy mistake. was he only babbling? or was his bit about scotch and cigar mere bravado -- was there some convention, some joke, to which she wasn't privy?
whatever's gone wrong -- whatever's prompted him to talk about boy's clubs and suggest that she'd be more comfortable if miss lance was also in attendance -- peggy cares less about the source and more about what's to be done in its wake.
with a churlish huff, she adds: ] And I'll have you know I'm quite fine without the invitation. Whether it was made out of pity or -- or otherwise.
[ it's what she lands upon. pity. and she lashes out for it, too, although she's got no proof apart from the quiet offer ray made over cupcakes that she could come to him if she ever needed to talk with someone. somehow, she'd managed to twist his assurance over sara's presence into something similar.
she resents it. ]
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is this too much goof for you lmao i feel like i'm hardcore testing your limits lol
it's lovely.
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