tearmeanewone | rendez-vous + APPOINTMENT POST

[Elizabeth laughs and starts walking with Gai in tow towards the village.] Is that anything like absynthe? Because I'm not certain anyone can sing and stay standing with that much alcohol in their system.

Something like that, and I never said anything about them remaining standing while they sang.

[He's also not going to let her try any because he does not want to be responsible for anything terrible that happens as a result. He'd rather their first date not end with him having to carry her home.]

[~~OR SO HE THINKS...~~]

[Elizabeth laughs at the image of a bar covered with people struggling to stand up while singing some tuneless thing.] You're awful, Gai. But I suppose you wouldn't attempt to get an entire bar drunk for any girl? And that I should feel flattered?

[Her mental image wouldn't be far off the mark, actually, so she can go ahead and laugh all she wants.]

Considering I don't make it a habit of getting entire bars drunk in general, yes. But you're hardly the first person to accuse me of being awful.

[Shame and Gai are not two words that belong in the same sentence.]

So the next time I'm in a bar and you walk in, I don't have to get up and leave for fear of being intoxicated? I'm glad to hear it.

But who's been accusing you of being awful? Not seriously I hope.

You're almost making it sound like you don't want to get drunk at a bar with me.

[The second part... he'd rather not address that just yet. There are many people who have indeed called him "awful" in all seriousness, and while it's a fact he doesn't run from, he doesn't feel that this is the point to bring it up yet.]

With you? Of course. As a part of your blast radius? Not exactly. [She smirks, but silently hopes that she isn't going to be too drunk by the end of the night. People had a tendency to forget things when they got too drunk and Elizabeth wants to remember all of this.]

I am known for leaving collateral damage wherever I go. I'll do my best to keep it contained tonight...

[And now it's his turn to smirk.]

... unless you'd rather I didn't.

[She raises an eyebrow at him.] That depends entirely on what kind of collateral damage you're talking about.

What kind do you want?

[Yep, he's being awful with absolutely no shame here. Good thing they're almost at the bar so that he can't make this much worse.]

Well I want to leave the bar on my feet, so anything that's counter to that goal is out. It might be nice if we leave the bar standing as well. And I'd like to be able to come back without people recoiling, too.

Have I ruined your fun yet?

Only part of it. I'll keep us on our feet, but no promises about the rest of the patrons. I will promise no direct injuries... unless any of them decide to pick a fight. Then all bets are off.

[He'll just make sure it isn't too messy if that happens.]

Deal. [She grins.] I don't know, though. You getting into a bar fight seems a little...

[Elizabeth raises an eyebrow and gives Gai the once over. He's pretty lithe...]

[And he raises an eyebrow right back, amused. She's hardly the first person to underestimate his physical capabilities.]

Oh? You don't think I could handle it?

Well, you could handle it better than I could. But I don't think the Vox Populi would be clamoring to recruit you either.

Oh, that's... a resistance group, where I'm from.

[Gai's eyebrows go up the slightest bit more, but not for the reason Elizabeth likely suspects. He'd been planning to raise this subject later, not now, but... it's a logical segue from this conversation, and truthfully, it would be best to get this out in the open sooner rather than later.

If that means she's no longer interested in him, then so be it.]

... I led a resistance group in my own world.

[That's the last thing Elizabeth expected him to say.]

[She stops walking and stares at him, wide-eyed. Before Finkton, Elizabeth would have been entirely swept off her feet. Her own Enjolras, standing right there. But it isn't as romantic as she'd thought, she knows that now. She'd seen people screaming and beating at the bars of a prison, people lined up to be shot, children with guns to their heads--]

What were you fighting for? [She's looking right at Gai, but she's seeing something else.]

Freedom.

[In one sense. The GHQ's hold on Japan had been oppressive, there was no denying that. What they'd done in Roppongi the day after he and Shu had met was proof of that much. Those civilians had been nothing more than pawns to the GHQ, killed to make a point and to get what they wanted.

But he's also spilled more than his share of blood in the conflict and he knows it, even if not all of it was by his own hands.

And he thinks of the face of a child, mortally wounded and yet telling Gai that he was glad Gai had survived.]

And the future of my world.

[Yes... that was the fight of the Vox as well. Freedom, the right to live somewhere that wasn't Finkton. A future and a voice.]

[It scared her, to think that she could be face-to-face with another Daisy Fitzroy. With someone whose goal could outweigh the cost, and twist so drastically as to support murder. Widespread, indiscriminate, thoughtless killing of dozens of people in the streets. Gai was charismatic, Elizabeth had been drawn in almost immediately. And it scared her now.]

The leader of the Vox was named Daisy Fitzroy. She killed a man who was responsible for the oppression of... so many people. And then she found his son--a child--and she almost...

[Elizabeth has to physically shake herself to push what happened next to the back of her mind.] Is that the sort of freedom you want? Something that comes from... finding reasons to kill anyone?

[Her response doesn't even come as a surprise to him. Resistance fighter, terrorist... there's a thin line between the two, as he knows well, mostly boiling down to which side you happen to be on. He's been called both of those things and worse; he won't deny it. To say that he's proud of all of his actions would be a lie.

He's put innocent people at risk, even allowed some of them to die. He won't deny that either. But what he wants more than anything is to be a person who is worthy of all of the sacrifices, all of the lives that have been lost because of him.

So he just looks calmly at Elizabeth, neither confirming nor denying what she says.]

My stepfather adopted me for the sole purpose of creating a suitable mate for Eve, the girl who was to be the progenitor of the new race-- the next generation of humanity. A new race that could only be created by destroying all existing life.

Edited 2013-07-11 04:59 (UTC)

[So it went beyond murder, into genocide. To Elizabeth, that goal makes no sense. The world would collapse before a new race could replace the life lost. But Comstock using her to wage war on cities below Columbia didn't make sense to her either. It was an ideal, taken too far. To a dark place where killing people was an acceptable means to an end. Damn how twisted and hypocritical the road was--the end would justify it...]

And that's what you stood up against?

[Gai nods once, silently. His own love for humanity has been worn thin over the years of constant exposure to its worst sides, but even despite that, he has no desire to erase it for good. "Evolution" or not, he doesn't believe that this new race should come about as a result of the extinction of the old. People had a right to struggle, to at least attempt to determine their own fate, just as he had done.

"You survived with your own strength."

Everyone deserved that chance, even if ultimately their struggle amounted to naught.]

[This is an incredible amount of conflict for Elizabeth. On the one hand, that image of Daisy Fitzroy with a bloody handprint smeared across her face is one that Elizabeth is almost certain she'll never forget. That realization that something that started for the good of all had warped into a chaotic bloodbath. It wasn't all poetics and idealism, and young men dying for what they believed in. It was more real than anything Elizabeth had seen, and so it would never leave her.]

[But could someone who was heartless and twisted write such sad music? Throw her onto the ground to protect her? Walk her home and leave her at her door, when the books she'd read featured men who would suggest heavily that they wanted to be invited in? And how could she begin to doubt someone who had seen her tears and still held onto her?]

I shouldn't be afraid. You aren't afraid of me...

[Maybe she wasn't afraid that Gai was Fitzroy. Maybe she was afraid he would become like her...]

No, you should be afraid of me. You should be afraid of what I've done and what I can do.

[Because it's the truth. Because he's been killing since the gun he held weighed nearly half as much as he did. Because that's all he's ever done and all he knows how to do. He's been trained, refined into a ruthless killing machine, because those who couldn't be that didn't survive.

The life he has here is one he doesn't really know how to live. He doesn't know how to live in a situation without conflict, without combat, and the more time he spends with Elizabeth, the more acutely aware of that he becomes.

It would be for the best if she was afraid of him.]

No, I shouldn't! [Elizabeth's hand on Gai's elbow turns into a grip, trying to force him to look at her and see what she's trying to say.]

If I was afraid, I would be a hypocrite. And that is one thing... I do not want to be. I can live with myself if I'm anything else. But I stood behind someone who killed dozens, maybe hundreds, of people so I could escape and never look over my shoulder again.

How ungrateful would I be if I said I was afraid of him for doing that for me? How backwards would it be if I said I understood what he did, but couldn't understand whatever you did? For something bigger than just me?

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