"You've reached the inbox of Jeremiah Gottwald. I'm unavailable at the moment, but leave a message and I'll return your call as soon as possible. Thank you."
[She doesn't speak again until they're well outside of Suzaku's mansion, past the gate and walking down the only path before the road diverges. There's so much they could talk about after that display of... whatever it was, but she opts to break the silence with something smaller, something just between the two of them.]
I apologise for thinking you capable of betraying my trust. I should have known such crudeness was beneath you.
[The quiet isn't exactly comfortable, but it's not unwelcome. Some time to either gather his thoughts or simply disperse them is a reprieve, if anything. By the time Cornelia strikes up a conversation, Jeremiah at least feels less tense.
Being caught off-guard feels in line for the night, but he doesn't have a whole lot of energy left to get flustered, his words just about sighed out.]
It's all right, Your Highness. It was an easy association to make, one I don't blame you for. [Hence his own reaction, really.] Nor did I assume you were intentionally revealing anything.
What do you mean by "intentionally revealing anything"?
[Emphasis on intentionally. She'd been so caught up in her anger that she hadn't been watching the others' reactions so she's still fairly comfortable with believing that their secret remains a secret.
Or at least she was. Now she's stopped and turned around and fixing Jeremiah with a look that's equal part confused and concerned.]
I... am sorry, I don't know why I said it like that. I don't believe you would intentionally do something of the sort at all.
[He stops as well, frowning at the ground. Thoughts all tangled up, Jeremiah wonders if maybe he's, in fact, had enough to drink. Or is it his guilt slipping out? He made enough eye contact without watching everyone to have his suspicions, but god, he doesn't want to talk about any others right now.]
But I fear that my reaction was revealing of something.
[Pardon her – she just needs a moment of abjectly horrified silence, all right? All right.]
You fear, but you don't know?
[It's a bit of a scrambling question. She's trying to make the implications seem smaller than they are, less awkward to navigate through when there are already enough obstacles obstructions along the path ahead, several of which she's still reeling over.]
[Then either she didn't look or it wasn't really that bad. Jeremiah stops staring at the ground, but it's only just to some point past her shoulder.]
Considering how warm my face got, I'm sure I turned red. [Not proud of that. He sighs.] That's all really, but it felt like enough.
[In that atmosphere, but he's not saying that. He's also an open book and they're smart. At the very least, Lelouch stared at him long enough. Nope, not throwing that out there either.]
[It's enough to calm some of the wildness brewing in her eyes, but it's hardly reassuring. Looking away herself, she sighs and searches for her words among the cracks in the sidewalk. Only one thing comes to mind, and she's drained enough to speak it outright rather than downplaying everything as she might have otherwise.]
Was there anything about today that wasn't disastrous?
[Mostly a rhetorical question. It sure as hell doesn't feel like there's anything that wasn't on the wrong side of neutral and even if there was, she's not sure that she's in the right mood to humour it.]
[Shallow and inessential, but he's a lush; discerning taste or not, he's actually not hard to please these days. Precisely what she was looking for, but damned if he's not trying to find bright spots in everything around them.
Then again, Jeremiah didn't have a great gauge on the tolerance of everyone else at that table. Perhaps without that lowered inhibition, lowered filter, it wouldn't have escalated. The game itself may have been rigged to fail, though. "Against humanity" indeed. At least it might only be incriminating on his behalf.]
[A narrowing of her eyes as she wonders if he's serious, and a very slight relaxing of her shoulders when he realises that of course he is. Some people are drawn to bright sides like moths... to the bright sides... of light fixtures...]
Is that the best you can come up with?
[It's not all salty rage and ragey salt. Sometimes it's snarky salt and salty snark.]
[It makes him laugh. Softly and a little deprecatingly, and maybe it shouldn't even if he has been drinking, but he laughs.]
If it's the best the night had to offer, sure.
[And he really is a lush, so his priorities are off. Let him call it that, because he's not ready to graduate to "alcoholic." There's time enough for his habit to worsen, the island surely full of exacerbating factors.]
[Well, she's not laughing. She just kind of watches him for a bit, lingering just long enough that it might get sliiiightly uncomfortable for a moment there, but she's not doing it deliberately. Given what she's about to say, she wants to be at least a little more sure that she's reading the mood right.]
I'll accompany you to the bar. That is where you're headed, is it not?
[He earned it enough that Jeremiah doesn't wither terribly. Cornelia's expression isn't harsh either, all in all, so he doesn't take it too harshly in turn.]
It is. [Like he's that subtle or hard to predict. Fortunately, it spares him feeling too familiar by asking Cornelia himself.] Your company would certainly be welcome.
[Still, even after everything, even with the potential landmines. He can get reprieve from skirting them later, once he's alone in his apartment.]
You'll have to walk us there. I've never been before.
[She's passed it by, sure, but she couldn't pinpoint it on a map or find her way on her own without paying copious attention to her surroundings. If Jeremiah's a lush, then she is absolutely a lightweight.
That's fine, though; she's not going with him to drink. She's going with him because she cares about the orange man and wants to make sure he's all right.]
What's the ambience like?
[Read: is it seedy? Does she need to brace herself??? Also read: she is changing the subject. Badly. Oh well. Shit's awkward, yo.]
[They're on the right path for now, so Jeremiah makes no moves to change course. He'd intended to follow for as long as their trajectories were the same, his motivation not far off from her own.]
It is named "The Dive," but it's not terribly questionable, just... rustic. [And there might be people squirreling away to do questionable things out of sight, but isn't that technically a risk everywhere?]
[They've been stung by sex bees together, his threshold for awkward with her has been raised pretty high. So probably not, but it's not a possibility that worries him. Yet.]
Sometimes. I'd say it's more speaking to the state of the facility itself, but the rest is fine. The patrons are what make an ambiance above all, and I'm not too concerned with the other captives on this island.
[The natives, however, could just as easily spike those drinks they serve. Maybe it's smart for only one of them to partake.]
[It was always going to be only one of them partaking; Cornelia's never been a heavy drinker whether socially or to drown her sorrows, and over the course of the game Jeremiah's proven himself to be the opposite. Thus, you've got yourself an accountability buddy, Jeremiah. Hooray!]
I'll have to take your word for it, then. I can't say I've spent much time in bars even back home.
[Not even when she was young and differently rebellious. Fun started being a foreign concept for her around when she hit drinking age; after that, she had so much other shit to deal with that being incapacitated in any capacity was just not on her agenda.]
[He'll both be grateful and try not to get sloppy. Then he'd probably hit his awkward limit.]
Well, they can be hit or miss like anything, but you at least have an opportunity to try it.
[They have little else to do, no real responsibilities, and no public to keep safely away from here. Jeremiah's not thinking of it in precisely such dire terms, but he already has an inkling of what's left unsaid. Her path had to have been more narrow than his.]
That's one way of looking at it, I suppose. [And if he's not at his awkward limit yet, she might as well push at it a little bit.] Do you often visit the one here?
[No, she doesn't plan to talk about the bar forever; this is a segue, she is segueing into something else.]
[In a move that's sure to shock everyone, Frowny McFrowny-Pants frowns.]
You know why I'm asking, don't you? [It's cool if he doesn't because she's just going to barrel on into the point anyway.] You're having difficulty coping.
[He could see the conversation veering this way, and yet it plays out and all Jeremiah wants to do is laugh. Instead, he goes for another form of honesty.]
To a degree, yes. [He's smiling, but it's not very warm.] But that's not why I go. It's an old habit that I don't have many other avenues to satisfy. I miss things like a glass of wine with dinner, it's no attempt to drown my sorrows.
[If he were to try, Jeremiah would need a lot more credits to be successful.]
[As before, she's not going to beat him into the ground with a concern stick, so she holds back a sigh and says nothing at all for a moment.]
I wonder if that's for the best. In a place like this, learning to cope might only serve to breed complacency.
[Now it's Debbie Downer Hour. Huzzah.]
We're not working as hard as we should against the Augur. I know it's because we lack the means to do so, but how well are we pursuing those?
[They're drinking and playing card games and she doesn't even belong as part of their wacky group but this is how she's spending her time anyway. Shit's wack, yo.]
[Not much to argue when he doesn't see his drinking as a problem. Actually he's pretty good at it, even if her point carries its own validity.]
There's a degree to which falling into comforts of life here can be dangerous. It doesn't need to be mutually exclusive... but you're right. [He sighs.] I don't think it's enough, either.
[A moment's pause, not knowing if he should push forward. He still doesn't love the idea, but-]
I've been wondering how receptive the Augur would be to using these requests to making more core changes to how things function. Trading in for something more substantial than a single square, such as several, or perhaps an entire card. As long as it doesn't prevent the Augur from working or feeding off energy as it somehow must, I don't know that we can't also undermine it.
[Ah yes, the old "working within vs. working outside the system" debate. That one's led to fantastic results back home, hasn't it.]
[It's okay, who needs to learn from their mistakes anyway? Not this lot, that's for damned sure.]
You're suggesting that we beat the Augur at its own game.
[Said contemplatively. It makes sense, but also raises a question she hasn't really considered yet.]
I wonder... thus far, there seem to be no limits to what the Augur will give in exchange for an Auspicious Act, provided that it meets certain... cost requirements. Is that because there's truly nothing it won't give us, or is it because nobody's asked for something that would endanger it or its purpose?
[Which seems almost ridiculous to say given that there are multiple weapons of mass destruction just chilling in the hangars, but does that suggest indifference or confidence? And if the latter, confidence in what? She falls silent to think, but doesn't come up with anything that sounds more likely than other possibilities, so she doesn't speak any of them for now, stashing them away in the pockets of her mind for further consideration when her mind is more clear.]
A thought for another time, perhaps. What manner of changes are you thinking could work in our favour?
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I apologise for thinking you capable of betraying my trust. I should have known such crudeness was beneath you.
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Being caught off-guard feels in line for the night, but he doesn't have a whole lot of energy left to get flustered, his words just about sighed out.]
It's all right, Your Highness. It was an easy association to make, one I don't blame you for. [Hence his own reaction, really.] Nor did I assume you were intentionally revealing anything.
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[Emphasis on intentionally. She'd been so caught up in her anger that she hadn't been watching the others' reactions so she's still fairly comfortable with believing that their secret remains a secret.
Or at least she was. Now she's stopped and turned around and fixing Jeremiah with a look that's equal part confused and concerned.]
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[He stops as well, frowning at the ground. Thoughts all tangled up, Jeremiah wonders if maybe he's, in fact, had enough to drink. Or is it his guilt slipping out? He made enough eye contact without watching everyone to have his suspicions, but god, he doesn't want to talk about any others right now.]
But I fear that my reaction was revealing of something.
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[Pardon her – she just needs a moment of abjectly horrified silence, all right? All right.]
You fear, but you don't know?
[It's a bit of a scrambling question. She's trying to make the implications seem smaller than they are, less awkward to navigate through when there are already enough obstacles obstructions along the path ahead, several of which she's still reeling over.]
How did you react?
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Considering how warm my face got, I'm sure I turned red. [Not proud of that. He sighs.] That's all really, but it felt like enough.
[In that atmosphere, but he's not saying that. He's also an open book and they're smart. At the very least, Lelouch stared at him long enough. Nope, not throwing that out there either.]
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Was there anything about today that wasn't disastrous?
[Mostly a rhetorical question. It sure as hell doesn't feel like there's anything that wasn't on the wrong side of neutral and even if there was, she's not sure that she's in the right mood to humour it.]
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[Shallow and inessential, but he's a lush; discerning taste or not, he's actually not hard to please these days. Precisely what she was looking for, but damned if he's not trying to find bright spots in everything around them.
Then again, Jeremiah didn't have a great gauge on the tolerance of everyone else at that table. Perhaps without that lowered inhibition, lowered filter, it wouldn't have escalated. The game itself may have been rigged to fail, though. "Against humanity" indeed. At least it might only be incriminating on his behalf.]
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Is that the best you can come up with?
[It's not all salty rage and ragey salt. Sometimes it's snarky salt and salty snark.]
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If it's the best the night had to offer, sure.
[And he really is a lush, so his priorities are off. Let him call it that, because he's not ready to graduate to "alcoholic." There's time enough for his habit to worsen, the island surely full of exacerbating factors.]
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I'll accompany you to the bar. That is where you're headed, is it not?
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It is. [Like he's that subtle or hard to predict. Fortunately, it spares him feeling too familiar by asking Cornelia himself.] Your company would certainly be welcome.
[Still, even after everything, even with the potential landmines. He can get reprieve from skirting them later, once he's alone in his apartment.]
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[She's passed it by, sure, but she couldn't pinpoint it on a map or find her way on her own without paying copious attention to her surroundings. If Jeremiah's a lush, then she is absolutely a lightweight.
That's fine, though; she's not going with him to drink. She's going with him because she cares about the orange man and wants to make sure he's all right.]
What's the ambience like?
[Read: is it seedy? Does she need to brace herself??? Also read: she is changing the subject. Badly. Oh well. Shit's awkward, yo.]
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[They're on the right path for now, so Jeremiah makes no moves to change course. He'd intended to follow for as long as their trajectories were the same, his motivation not far off from her own.]
It is named "The Dive," but it's not terribly questionable, just... rustic. [And there might be people squirreling away to do questionable things out of sight, but isn't that technically a risk everywhere?]
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Right?
Anywho, she'll squint a bit at the word rustic, and no, she isn't going to let it go that easily.]
Isn't "rustic" how people describe questionable things when they don't want to be insulting?
[Is joke. She jokes. The important thing is that she's following him to the literal Dive, okay? Okay.]
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Sometimes. I'd say it's more speaking to the state of the facility itself, but the rest is fine. The patrons are what make an ambiance above all, and I'm not too concerned with the other captives on this island.
[The natives, however, could just as easily spike those drinks they serve. Maybe it's smart for only one of them to partake.]
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I'll have to take your word for it, then. I can't say I've spent much time in bars even back home.
[Not even when she was young and differently rebellious. Fun started being a foreign concept for her around when she hit drinking age; after that, she had so much other shit to deal with that being incapacitated in any capacity was just not on her agenda.]
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Well, they can be hit or miss like anything, but you at least have an opportunity to try it.
[They have little else to do, no real responsibilities, and no public to keep safely away from here. Jeremiah's not thinking of it in precisely such dire terms, but he already has an inkling of what's left unsaid. Her path had to have been more narrow than his.]
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[No, she doesn't plan to talk about the bar forever; this is a segue, she is segueing into something else.]
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You know why I'm asking, don't you? [It's cool if he doesn't because she's just going to barrel on into the point anyway.] You're having difficulty coping.
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To a degree, yes. [He's smiling, but it's not very warm.] But that's not why I go. It's an old habit that I don't have many other avenues to satisfy. I miss things like a glass of wine with dinner, it's no attempt to drown my sorrows.
[If he were to try, Jeremiah would need a lot more credits to be successful.]
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I wonder if that's for the best. In a place like this, learning to cope might only serve to breed complacency.
[Now it's Debbie Downer Hour. Huzzah.]
We're not working as hard as we should against the Augur. I know it's because we lack the means to do so, but how well are we pursuing those?
[They're drinking and playing card games and she doesn't even belong as part of their wacky group but this is how she's spending her time anyway. Shit's wack, yo.]
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There's a degree to which falling into comforts of life here can be dangerous. It doesn't need to be mutually exclusive... but you're right. [He sighs.] I don't think it's enough, either.
[A moment's pause, not knowing if he should push forward. He still doesn't love the idea, but-]
I've been wondering how receptive the Augur would be to using these requests to making more core changes to how things function. Trading in for something more substantial than a single square, such as several, or perhaps an entire card. As long as it doesn't prevent the Augur from working or feeding off energy as it somehow must, I don't know that we can't also undermine it.
[Ah yes, the old "working within vs. working outside the system" debate. That one's led to fantastic results back home, hasn't it.]
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You're suggesting that we beat the Augur at its own game.
[Said contemplatively. It makes sense, but also raises a question she hasn't really considered yet.]
I wonder... thus far, there seem to be no limits to what the Augur will give in exchange for an Auspicious Act, provided that it meets certain... cost requirements. Is that because there's truly nothing it won't give us, or is it because nobody's asked for something that would endanger it or its purpose?
[Which seems almost ridiculous to say given that there are multiple weapons of mass destruction just chilling in the hangars, but does that suggest indifference or confidence? And if the latter, confidence in what? She falls silent to think, but doesn't come up with anything that sounds more likely than other possibilities, so she doesn't speak any of them for now, stashing them away in the pockets of her mind for further consideration when her mind is more clear.]
A thought for another time, perhaps. What manner of changes are you thinking could work in our favour?
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