dissonance

[isthisart]

Dr. Cheung's at a funeral all day, so Linya decides to go up to London and see if Miles is out of his Mood.

Security has decided to be deeply unhelpful today. She is currently showing them various forms of ID and repeating in a slow, patient voice that she has been here before, there is not more than one of her, and she promises she is not there to assassinate her husband or whatever fool thing has them skittish today. Perhaps she shouldn't drop in while the captain's missing; it seems to make them worse. But she got in before while he was missing...

Comments

[unmarred]

"Yeah, sorry about that. I think the guards are more afraid of you than I am. You're engineered but you've had no combat training; I could take you. What's a ticket to Tau Ceti supposed to do for me?"

[isthisart]

"You might be able to take me; I very much doubt you could outrun me," she points out. "Neither could they. I don't know what you want to do, but Tau Ceti is less here than here. I'll send you all the way to Beta or something if you'd rather. With a pocketful of cash if you like."

[unmarred]

"And you can't outrun a stunner beam. Game to me," Mark points out. "Anyway, that's a very nice offer, but if I wanted to run I could just run. All the way to Beta Colony if I felt like it. I hear I've got a grandmother there."

[isthisart]

"You have, although I've never met her so I can't comment on her hospitality."

[unmarred]

"I haven't heard much about her, but from what I've heard, she'd take me in."

He studies Linyabel thoughtfully.

"I wonder if you'd understand better than Miles, what it means to be afraid. I suspect not."

[isthisart]

"I am currently very much afraid that at some point my value as a live captive will run out and I will never get to go home and finish working on the baby and help Dr. Cheung's research and make sufficiently certain that Miles is my Miles to the point where I'm willing to act like it more than conversationally and ever play the piano again and so on. This is probably not what you have in mind."

[unmarred]

"It isn't," he agrees. "I'm afraid of different things, different ways. It's like... how do I translate...? It's like having a little invisible goblin sitting on my shoulder with a nerve disruptor," he gestures to the approximate hypothetical location of the goblin, "and every time I think about doing something that I know would make Galen angry..." He shrugs. "It doesn't matter if it would be almost impossible for him to find me after I pissed him off. The goblin's still there. A fear so strong it has separated from its source and gained a life of its own."

[isthisart]

She shakes her head. "I've never had that, no."

[unmarred]

"I'm happy for you. I wouldn't wish my life on anyone."

[isthisart]

"Neither would I. I have looked at Miles's genome. I have a loose inkling of what must have happened to you."

[unmarred]

"Oh, lots of surgery," he says dismissively. "Surgery's not so bad. I thought it was a bit much when they replaced my leg bones with synthetics, but I wasn't about to complain. There's things worse than surgery."

[isthisart]

"They replaced -? Of course they did. But you also do an astonishingly convincing put-on of Miles for having to be younger than him, and raised in a different context, and I don't imagine that left much spare time." Pause. "And I imagine when your leg bones were replaced you didn't have anyone visiting you in the hospital to sing to you."

[unmarred]

"You sang to him? Of course you did," says Mark, smiling. "Putting on Miles is easy. I had to learn a lot about him, but I don't think it was as hard as you're imagining. I learn fast. No, the hard part is..." he trails off and makes a vague gesture in her direction.

[isthisart]

"The part where I picked you up." She sighs. "You probably could have rescued the act, but then of course I would have touched you again eventually."

[unmarred]

"Yeah. And—what was it Miles said—" He looks abstracted for a moment, then quotes perfectly,

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Are you so horrifyingly deprived of positive touch that being picked up and kissed by someone who thinks you're her husband nearly gives you a heart attack?"

[isthisart]

Linya doesn't flinch at the sudden adoption of her husband's mannerisms as though Miles were a coat.

She says, "I am currently tied to a chair, but if I weren't I'd try holding out a hand in your direction to see what you'd do with it."

[unmarred]

He drops Miles as soon as he's done quoting, anyway.

"I don't know what I would do. Is it worth the experiment, do you think?"

[isthisart]

"Well, I don't know, you'd have to untie at least one of my hands and I'm not sure how much of a drawback you'd consider that."

[unmarred]

"I don't consider it much of one."

He contemplates the idea for a few more seconds, then unties one of her hands. (He manages not to touch her at all in the process.)

[isthisart]

And she holds out her hand, arm straight, hand extended invitingly.

[unmarred]

He looks at it as though it is the most utterly mysterious thing he has ever seen.

"I'm not sure I understand the parameters here," he murmurs.

[isthisart]

"The parameters?"

[unmarred]

"The..." He gestures helplessly. "I know how to be Miles. I don't know how to be me. I don't - understand what you're doing, or why, or what I want to do about it."

[isthisart]

"Well, if I presented Miles with my hand like this he'd probably kiss it, so anything other than that is an option."