InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Use the Force!"

Beauty (i_tame) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-08-23 19:16:00

Entry tags:

honour bellaforte, ted earley

The Answer That You Endorse (Ted)
The entire day felt like a weight. Once the books were properly shelved, the rest of her hours at work stretched impossibly long. Errol was up in front, researching something... a topic too familiar for her tastes. Honour retreated to the rare books room - which was as far away from the front of the store as she could get - and spent the rest of the day pacing or restlessly changing positions in one of the bookstore's upholstered chairs. There'd been only one chime from the door, and she'd avoided coming out for that. She tried reading, but ended up going over the same two paragraphs again and again. Nothing was sticking, and she couldn't get her thoughts straight.

Something gnawed at her ruthlessly, and she was doing her best to hide it -- or at least hide away until she mastered it. When it came time for the end of her shift, Honour uncharacteristically rushed through closing duties and hurried out the door with hardly a word to her colleague. It shouldn't have been so difficult to be around him, she reflected, but she'd stopped meeting his eyes when they happened on her.

The warm early evening felt like a blanket around her. She hurried home and went to the room that felt the most comforting - her new library. Again, nothing seemed to take her mind off things; nothing helped at all. It was useless, all these attempts to distract herself. But maybe...

30 minutes later, Honour knocked on the beautiful doors of a friend. Over one arm she carried a basket filled to the brim with apples and carrots. When she dropped her hand to her side again, she tried plastering on a smile, but it felt so awful that she let it slide almost immediately.

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-24 01:10 am UTC (link)

Ted looked at the pouch and wondered if Jo was a roses-at-home kind of girl. He didn't know enough about her yet to guess. But he thought it could be a nice day finding good places to plant them.

"Thank you." Ted smiled and put the roses on the coffee table where he would be able to remember them the next time he went to see Jo.

"Yes, I think so." He sat back. "We ended up on that weird planet together, I gave her the flowers because I somehow kept them. That was two weeks we spent side by side and there wasn't fighting or discomfort."

He'd yet to catch up with her since being back, but he didn't take that as an ill omen. He'd had many work things to get done because his work had backed up while he'd been gone, and he guessed that she did too. There had been texts and brief phone calls, so it wasn't like they'd been completely out of touch.

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i_tame
2012-08-24 01:19 am UTC (link)

He'd gone there, too. Honour hated that Megan - and now Ted - were both subjected to it. But the idea that he'd gotten to spend two uninterrupted weeks with his lady... that wasn't so bad. Beauty's eyes softened.

"I'm so sorry you had to be there," she said earnestly. "But I'm glad you two had some time to spend together. I don't expect it was the best... date." Strange word, that. She'd learned it from the books she'd read here in the City, and from some of the people who lived here. Honour rubbed at the back of her hand pensively.

"Ted, can I ask you... well, it's very personal... Have you dated much? Do you know... ah, how it's done, and... and what helps to make it..." She struggled for the right words. "... nice?"

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-24 01:25 am UTC (link)

"It wasn't great." He admitted. "I was very happy to get back here."

Ted smiled. "No, it wasn't the best date, but we got saved by Spiderman, so we at least have a story that's pretty funny now that we're not involved directly in it."

He was doing his best to look on the bright side of it instead of thinking about all the really bad things that the place had held. If he thought about those too much, he thought he might never be able to let it go.

"I... well, I suppose yes." He'd dated before he'd married, and kind of during that time. Not that he'd tell Honour that part. "What is it that you'd like to know?"

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i_tame
2012-08-24 01:39 am UTC (link)

It was good to see him smiling, at least about spending time with his lady. The Spiderman story sounded interesting. "Maybe you can tell me about that a little later," she said, tugging on her fingertips. It did sound interesting, and she did want to hear it, but...

"I don't really know," she confessed. "I've never done it before, and Lestat says it's difficult. I want to do it well, but it..."

She sighed. It would probably be wrong to say exactly what she thought. Unkind at the very least. She went back to chewing on her bottom lip.

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-24 02:09 am UTC (link)

"I will." Ted promised.

"Lestat?" He frowned, shaking his head. "I only know one being with that name and I don't think you should be getting dating advice from him."

His arms crossed over his chest protectively and Ted found himself looking at the girl as he'd once looked at his own daughters.

"It's not easy, but nothing that is worthwhile is easy. You just have to be yourself and go with what you feel. Make sure that you don't get pushed into anything you don't want. Don't do things just because somebody says they're expected."

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i_tame
2012-08-24 02:26 am UTC (link)

".... de Lioncourt?" Beauty asked carefully. Lestat had taken her to task when she'd introduced him as a vampire once. She wouldn't mention his vampirism again, not without his permission. But surely if Ted were thinking of the same Lestat as she was, he'd know his full name. Lestat de Lioncourt. It was a beautiful, noble name, she thought. He was a good enough person. Vampire. He was a good vampire.

Beauty stashed away Ted's advice greedily, at the same time trying to mesh up what Lestat had said with what Ted was telling her now. So far, dating felt a lot like studying. She'd put the same type of effort into it. And she was fairly certain that everything she'd studied about kissing was wrong. All of it, wrong. Kissing, she could do without.

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-24 02:30 am UTC (link)

Ted sighed, his head drooping. He knew the name. He knew it well. He also couldn't avoid noticing the look she was giving him. He might not be a detective, but he'd seen those inquisitive, big, heartsore eyes before.

"Honour, please tell me that Lestat is not the one you are seeking advice for."

Because of teenaged daughters, Ted had seen the movies. He'd not read the books, but he'd heard all about them. There were a lot of issues here, and not just ones that had to do with blood.

Ted didn't think that this was the sort of thing that could work out the way that she wanted it to. Honour needed somebody living. Somebody she could share life with.

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i_tame
2012-08-24 02:43 am UTC (link)

In answer, Beauty toed off her flats and curled herself up in the corner of the couch. It was cushy and soft and easy to sink into.

"He's always been kind to me," she explained carefully. Her expression didn't look defensive; it looked pensive. "He said..." But here she paused, unwilling to repeat what Lestat had said to her in private, since she didn't know if he'd be upset if she did. "He's always showing me new things, and helping me stay safe..."

The expression on Ted's face was less than reassuring. Beauty folded her hands in her lap. She looked resigned. "I have no idea what I'm doing," she admitted at last.

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-24 02:54 am UTC (link)

"No. You don't." Her innocence broke his heart a little bit. His words weren't meant unkindly. He finally looked back up at the girl sitting by him.

"Kindness and everything else that you've just mentioned doesn't mean that you should be dating him. You didn't say one thing about feeling anything for him. Does he make your heart beat hard when you see him? Not out of fear, but out of some inexplicable rush? Do you think about him when you aren't with him and wonder what he's doing? See things and think that you should find a way to show him? Do you get butterflies in your stomach when he touches your hand?"

He shook his head again. "You have a friendship with him. That's clear. But going beyond that because of the things you listed is not love it's obligation. And that is not what dating is about. You don't owe him anything for being nice to you and helping you. Friends do that."

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i_tame
2012-08-26 02:28 am UTC (link)

It was hard to answer Ted's questions. She chewed on her thumb thoughtfully and stared out over the glassy floor. Sometimes she wondered what Lestat was up to. She enjoyed his company and she tried to be considerate to him.

But the butterflies in her stomach question... Beauty shifted on the couch and gave Ted a sidelong look. "I think you've been reading too many books about it," she said quietly. "I don't think that sort of thing is really the way people feel around each other. Shouldn't relationships be built around mutual respect and admiration?"

She admired Lestat quite a bit. He was very wise and knew so many things about the world. And of course, she respected him. Also, he seemed to like her. He seemed to like her, and that meant more than the fantasies she'd read in her books.

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-26 03:31 am UTC (link)

"I don't read books about it." Ted shook his head. "I'm not really a romance book kind of guy. Or movies. I mean, I'll watch them if it'll make somebody happy, but not on my own."

He stood up with another sigh and paced around the coffee table, trying to think of the way this would be best explained.

"Yes, it is actually how people feel about each other. Without it... well, without it you might as well have an arranged marriage." He scratched his head. "Your respect and admiration are important yes. As are honesty and a sense of humor. They're all building blocks. But if you don't feel anything toward a person, you shouldn't be with them, not in that way.

"I am absolutely head over heels for Jo. I can't help but smile when I think about her. I want to take her everywhere. I want to give her things that will make her smile, and do things that make her smile. There's this little jolt of electricity when she touches my hand."

Ted and Jo hadn't really gotten very far in their relationship, but they had held hands.

"On top of that, I respect her. She's a tough chick. I feel safe around her and protective of her. Which is an odd mix, and I can't really get into why that safety thing is thee. I trust her. I would never lie to her, and I feel like she would never lie to me. I admire her in a lot of ways. But I am very attracted to her, and I wouldn't have pursued her outside of a friendship if I weren't. It's unfair to her. It's almost mean, really. To be with somebody without being attracted to them."

Ted stopped and looked at Honour. "All you're talking about is friendship, Honour."

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i_tame
2012-08-26 08:25 pm UTC (link)

Honour couldn't help smiling, albeit somewhat wistfully, as the big man paced around talking about his Jo. It was very sweet. She found herself wishing she had someone like that...and then dropped her chin when she remembered that she did, in the person of Lestat.

She was beginning to see what Ted meant.

"All right," she said, templing her fingertips against her lips. "H...how did you..." She pinched her brow together. "How did you two... I mean, you had to have started out as friends, but then.... Then what?"

How did one go from friends to something else? With Lestat, he'd just told her. And the rest... Well. That had been hee, hadn't it? Despite facts, Beauty was having a very hard time thinking about Lestat as more than a friend.

Ted was right, wasn't he?

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i_worknumbers
2012-08-27 06:21 am UTC (link)

"Well. Honestly, it wasn't really like that. We met one day because I was looking at a house during our stand still. To create revenue for the budget. But there was a ghost in it, the ghost tried to kill me, and Jo was there and saved me. We talked a little bit, but I asked her out because I wanted to thank her and I wanted to see her again. I wasn't sure if she would accept a date from a guy so much older than her, but she did. We've taken it fairly slow since then, but I know what I feel about her."

Ted sat on the couch again, looking at this friend who was making him feel more like a father figure than anything.

"It can't be forced. Ever. If you're not feeling it, it's not right. You haven't said a single thing to me so far in relation to Lestat that makes me feel like you want to be more than friends with him. It sounds like you feel like you should, but that's not the way it should be. Honour, there has to be somebody else that's made you feel more. Maybe not now, maybe before? At some point in your life the palms of your hands felt a little clammy when you got near somebody, you felt goosebumps rise when they touched you. The stories are stories because they've a basis in fact. If nobody ever experienced it, then nobody would hope to, and nobody would write about it."

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i_tame
2012-08-29 02:14 am UTC (link)

Her fingers were fastidiously brushing non-existent dust away from the skirt that had fanned out over her and her couch cushion. "Maybe," she admitted. But all of that seemed so... so hopeless. Lestat, on the other hand. Lestat wanted her around. Lestat smiled at her. Lestat invited her out. Lestat wanted to be with her. And Beauty was sure that she only needed to spend more time around him to feel the same. After all, it didn't all happen overnight... Only now Ted was making her re-think what she thought was right.

"Sometimes I can't speak. My throat gets... and it's hard to breathe. Sometimes my skin hurts because all I want..." She couldn't talk about this with Ted without turning bright red, and she was well on her way to it. If it were Megan, she might have had a better chance at saying more. Instead she stopped, then clasped her hands tightly in her lap and stared at the floor. Somewhere close by, she heard the steady clomping of hooves on tile. She lifted her head, then, and looked around. Ah, yes, there he was.

"I'd like to give Lestat a chance," she said at last. "He's been so, so good to me. I just never thought about him the same way as... I just never thought about him the way you think about Jo. It never occurred to me."

From Ted's expression, Honour imagined he wasn't going to understand this. But still, she'd at least gotten a different perspective. Was she being unkind? She hadn't thought so at the time. Maybe she was wrong. "I think I need to think more about this," she finally said to him, and took a breath, and stood. "Thank you, Ted."

She was so earnest and so sincere with her gratitude, all the more so when she hugged him quickly. "I can let myself out," she said against his side.

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