itistolaugh | Mask or Menace IC Contact

It does suck. I'm sorry that they hurt you. How did that happen with Archie?

[Harley Quinn, World's Greatest Detective.]

[ Shit, he's been caught out! Odin puts a hand over his heart, nervously glancing around the room in case Archie can hear them somehow. Ugh. Augh. ]

... So, uh. Before Poe ended up with this other guy-- we'd planned on moving in together? And Archie said-- we were both just hurting each other. For a lot of reasons. Called me stupid for wanting to do it. He shut down pretty hard, when I tried to explain my side of things. Which is fine. But.

I have a really hard time expressing myself, sometimes. And he knows that. And he knows I get through it by being kind of - verbose? Theatrical. And I was doing that... and he just said I was trying to pretty things up. Like - I was lying. So... I reminded him of how we first became really close? He and I? When I was ported in? 'Cause I wrote this big story to tell him how I was feeling when I couldn't, like, reach out with the words themselves, and he figured out what I meant and he came over and we became really close and he helped me open up. And just, like.

He just told me to leave. When I brought it up. Because he was sick of me. Because I'm always being stupid and making bad decisions.

Well, that's. Something. We can circle back to that.

Did he tell you to leave? Did he actually say, get out, I'm sick of you because you're always being stupid and making bad decisions? Because-- I'm not calling you a liar, but it seems to me that maybe you both got keyed up and maybe started reading into each other stuff nobody actually said. It's still not good that what happened makes you feel like he's sick of you and that you're stupid, but feeling it doesn't make that true. You're not stupid. I don't think he's sick of you either. He's a ride or die kind of bitch.

I said, "do you remember bluh bluh bluh" and he just-- cut me off, basically, all like, "Crobat'll take you home." So.

[ heeeee shrugs. it was a pretty clear dismissal, if nothing else. ]

I mean, it came after a pretty shitty and dramatic conversation where he was all exasperated by me and very clearly angry at my choices and dismissive of my feelings. Which-- is fine. I'm not saying I was blameless? Because, like, let me be clear. It's sweet of you to think otherwise, but I'm a super stupid dude. All the things I think and do are like, the wrong things to think and do.

[ he breathes out. ]

But - god. I'm just venting. I don't want this to get back to him? Because we'll probably talk... in a day or two. And I'll apologize for my part in this and for overreacting and he'll hopefully apologize for his. Just - man. I don't have a lot of friends I can rely on, and-- and, like-- it sucks fighting with one of them.

You're not stupid.

[ She jabs the brush in the air to mark her point, sending another tuft of fur to the floor. ]

Doing stuff that other people wouldn't do, or not the way they want you to do it, or wishing you'd done something a different way, or thinking ... or thinking anything-- That's not wrong. That's not stupid.

[She has to take a breath. Some of him is too close to home. She still falls into the same patterns.]

There are a lot of different ways to be smart.

[Some of the more industrious crows have started stealing wayward fluffs to line their nests. The hyenas snap lazily at them, but don't seem inclined to give chase. They have been pecked too many times before. She watches the menagerie for a while.]

Anyway. Archie won't hear about any of this from me. I'm sure he'll feel like an asshole and talk to you himself before I could even get the chance.

He's-- I love him? I love the guy. He's great in a lot of ways, but I don't think he's... Love that hurts like this isn't really something I think he can get. It looks different than it feels.

[ Odin opens his mouth, very clearly ready to argue his point about just how stupid he is, but he falters and gives up, just spending the time listening, instead. He keeps brushing, keeping his hand steady, thinking, again, of the weapon maintenance he would calm himself down with at home. ]

... I don't know. I've always wondered why he likes me. He's - I've given him some pretty harsh shit, before, about some things he did back home. I think on some level I've always known it would reach a point where he'd just get mad at me and leave, and I'm, like - maybe this is... it.

[ He breathes out. Shrugs. Lets this go, for a while. ]

Ugh, anyway. It'll be fine. It's fine. Archie's not even the worst part of my life right now.

Nothing harsher than he gives himself every day, I'm sure.

So about this Poe. What happened there?

Yeah, but I don't - want to validate... any self-hate he might feel. I don't know.

[ he's quiet, for a minute. ]

God, okay. Poe stuff. It's - rough. It's long? It's rough and long. That's what she said. It'll take a while. Are you okay with that? I can totally leave, still.

No, you can't. Lou has you hostage so you might as well talk.

[ Odin laughs, a little, scratching Lou behind the ear. Slightly disappointed his that's what she said joke didn't land, but whatever. ]

... So, yeah. There's this guy. Poe.

[ His eyes light up, but it fades. ]

I'm in love with him. More than anything. I told him - on national TV, actually, so you might have seen it - that I wanted to be something with him. And he said... no, because there was somebody else. [ he swallows. ] And that - it hurt. But it was fine. I cried, a bit. We danced around each other for a couple of weeks, trying to figure out what to do, but we decided to stay friends, anyway. He invited me to live with him. He spent all these days with me, making me feel - special. Still. Like he always did. And then - and then he told me that he had feelings for me, too. But that he was making a choice to give this up, because - I don't really know why, still. He wanted the other guy more, even though he thought it was never going to...

[ His voice fades, as he tries to figure out how to phrase this next part. ]

And now they're together. Poe and this other dude whose name I don't even know. But he told me the feelings he had for me - he said he was in love with me? But he's still making this choice. So I don't know... what to believe, or why he would tell me that, or what I am to him. Or what I'm supposed to do. I don't know why he kept dragging me along and staying close to me and making me think that there was hope for us despite-- if it was never - if it... if things were always going to end like this. I think that maybe I was a distraction? Because he thought this other guy wasn't ever going to be there - for him. A backup. In case he ever broke under how lonely he was. He knew that I would always be there, to look at him, the way that I do. But I don't know if he made that choice actively or if it was subconscious or...

Just, I gave him everything good that I have. And it wasn't enough? I'm never enough. I've never - I've always wanted to be, like, the most important person to someone, ever since I was little, but I'm still not. And I'm gonna die, when I'm ported home, and I don't have enough time to fall out of love with this dude and find someone else and be loved or wanted as much as I want to be. So I don't know what I have left. Anymore.

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