[Video] 41

[maddest]

[Like so many others will this week, Break wakes up screaming. The PCD isn't pointed at the bed, so it doesn't capture anything but sound until he scrambles off of it, past the camera and towards the window, throwing it open to get fresh air.

This all hits a little close to home.]

Why-

[He asks, hoarsely, a few minutes later,]

-does the network insist on displaying our grief? The timing is too consistent to be accidental.

Comments

[al_truism]

[Al flicks clean dishwater at him.]

Of course I count!

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about a reasonable and objective standard.

[al_truism]

You think I'm being unreasonable to like or forgive you?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously!

[al_truism]

[He just sighs.]

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

You trusted Yuca.

[al_truism]

Rain asked me to.

He didn't have anybody else.

I thought that maybe... I don't know. That this time, I might help him to realize that life wasn't so bad.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Rain was a bit of a twerp. You can look after someone without trusting them.

[al_truism]

Can I tell you a secret?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Of course.

[al_truism]

I never fully trusted him. Not really.

And it still surprised me.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[al_truism]

I kind of wonder if he sensed it.

If things would have been different, if I had.

[He shrugs a little.]

I don't blame myself for it, not anymore, but sometimes I wonder.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Would you blame me? If I told you that story?

[al_truism]

Which story?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

About not trusting him, but being surprised.

[al_truism]

Of course not.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

There you are, then.

[al_truism]

[A small smile, and Al stops behind his chair, leans down to hug him around the shoulders.]

I did miss you. Terribly.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Enough of this.

[al_truism]

[He pulls back, immediately.]

I'm sorry.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Not angry- just at my threshhold.

[al_truism]

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Alphonse, calm yourself.

[Sipping his tea.]

[al_truism]

... I need a minute.