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Matt Cavanaugh ([info]palehorses) wrote in [info]we_float,
@ 2010-06-12 21:00:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood: excited
Current music:"Big Shot" :: Kill Hannah
Entry tags:character: matt cavanaugh, character: maxxie delacourt

At seventeen they all hated her and me
Who: Maxxie Delacour and Matt Cavanaugh
When: Wednesday, June 9, 2096
Where: Matt's room
What: Matt tries to convince Maxxie to completely chick out with him.
Status: Closed, Incomplete

He opened the door to her knock, slightly surprised - he didn't remember anyone even knocking on the door before - but took the offered note calmly. As he read it, one eyebrow rose, and he looked up at her. "Come on in, then, princess."

He completely assumed, turning away to let her in, that she would follow; it never even occurred to him that she wouldn't, nor that she might be at all disturbed when he carefully set his cigarette into an ashtray and pulled his shirt off. "You can't just, like, look in the closet," he added, his voice slightly muffled. "Dresses are worn." But hey, she'd been in gymnastics for-fucking-ever, and TKD or whatever the hell else she did, she'd seen skin.

"As for the rest of it," he added, toeing his shoes off and using the opportunity to take a drag, "I haven't called a meeting because that's rather a statement of being the fucking leader, and I'm not even convinced I want to stay in this fucking country. I mean, that's not a fucking threat, I told you that already, it's just that going from christ I don't want this to yay, I will lead us all, is just a bit fucking weird, you know?"


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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-13 03:08 pm UTC (link)
Maxxie stepped inside, turning to nudge the door mostly closed. By the time she'd turned back around, he had his shirt off and seemed to be... getting undressed. Oh. Well, yes, if he was going to put on a dress that made some kind of sense, but it surprised her that he was going to do it right there in front of her. A flush suffused her cheeks and she crossed her arms, finding a spot on the wall to look at.

It wasn't as if she hadn't seen people change in open rooms before. Plenty of people. Female people. Usually along with catty comments about whose thighs looked fat instead of muscular, or whose boobs were too big (only in gymnastics would she get comments that they were too big, she was sure of it). But she didn't normally change with the guys.

"I haven't called a meeting because I'm not really the meeting type, and besides, I haven't heard back yet from our leader lady so I don't exactly have details. Besides. I'm not the leader type either. Considering I'm the youngest one here, I don't see all of you trailing along after me like ducklings, right?"

She started to look over at him -- it was so ingrained to look at someone when she spoke to them -- then the flush deepened and she decided the wall was fine. "Do you wear dresses often then?"

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-13 05:04 pm UTC (link)
"Nah, not really," he said, reaching into the closet for one. "I just wear whatever, you know? I mean, mostly I mooch around in, like, fucking jeans and a shirt and a jacket, but man, a lot of that's that I'm out of my fucking element, and I really, really do not need the attention that you get if you look like you don't belong, at least not right now. Need to process it myself before I start wandering around in, like, half the crap I own. Clotheshorse. Which, of course, is half of why I own all the shit I do, it looks cool, and I suck at figuring out when I'd wear it. Usually, course, I don't care as much, and honestly, back home it was a case of punching people in the fucking eye for their superiority complexes, but now I don't because - well, we're in Seattle. Stand out on the street and you'll see half the people are more interesting than I could manage in clothes, and that's in about thirty seconds of watching. And I kind of don't want to stand out yet until I know more about what, you know, what I'm resting my fucking world on, you know? I mean, a group of frat boys out to beat up a fag following me home or something - and that's fucking happened - is going to blow you all sky high too, which isn't fair of me. But another part of it's that there's a lot - a lot - less personal fucking repression here, you know? My god, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Utah's already hauling wild cards in front of the firing squad, honestly. And you try growing up there and knowing you're never going to fit in." It wasn't sad, nor even defiant; Matt spoke of the distinction as that of a cultural alien who would never be able to - or desire to - assimilate.

He hadn't missed the fact she wasn't looking at him, nor the blush when she did; he pulled the dress on before he took his pants off, more for her than for him.

"You can turn around now, princess," he added after a moment of twitching fabric into place - Matt wore clothes, not simply hung them off him. He hadn't planned this, so it wasn't as good as it could've been, but then, that wasn't the point, to fake out something he wasn't. At least, today it wasn't. The dress itself was simple in cut - short sleeves and a relatively high v-neck - but the pattern on it was anything but, composed of abstract splashes of blues and purples, giant patterns of colour that didn't resemble anything so much as maybe a really abstract O'Keefe painting. But you could see anything in it, and Matt liked that - it was the entire reason he'd bought it when he'd found it for sale.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-13 06:31 pm UTC (link)
"Are you gay?" As a response to everything he'd said, it likely wasn't the right one. But it also wasn't a slur, or a poor commentary on the dress; it was as honestly asked as most questions that Maxxie slipped and actually asked were. "I hadn't realized, hadn't even really thought about it." It surprised her, a little; she hadn't realized that she had that default setting of straight in her mind, but she supposed she did.

She walked around him, checking the dress from all angles, seeing how it fell differently on his frame. A small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "You definitely do like to stand out."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-14 04:59 am UTC (link)
"How in the hell that came up, I've got no fucking clue," Matt commented, but it was easy. He lit another cigarette and said "Sort of bi and asexual at the same time, really, you know? I mean, I don't like touching people, they're kind of ... sticky, and sex is even more sticky, so it's not really my big pastime. Also not really worried about what's in anyone's pants, either, so there you go, confusing answer for a confusing question, I guess."

He preened a little under her gaze, tucking his hair back. "Helps that I'm pretty," he added with a teasing look.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-14 01:17 pm UTC (link)
"Sex is messy," Maxxie agreed, and not necessarily worth it. While she didn't say the last, it was clearer in the pressed lips and eyeroll than she meant it to be. She filed away that he didn't like to be touched as an interesting note, and one she understood. "It's not so confusing an answer. I'd ask how you know you're bi if you don't care about sex, but I know I'm straight." She shrugged, because that seemed perfectly clear to her.

She laughed a little. "And you can pull off a bright large print, which is impressive. Something like that on me would make me look like a tropical garden ate me."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-21 06:52 am UTC (link)
"Never said I'd never had sex," he pointed out. "Just that it's rare for me to. Trust me, I've field-driven that one."

Something about the entire conversation was making him self-conscious - an unusual feeling for him, granted. Matt tended to do exactly as he pleased and damn the consequences, but something about the way she was looking - the way she was taking this seriously - he realised he couldn't explain that this wasn't crossdressing, exactly. It was more complicated than that: he'd bought the dress with the same selection criteria he offered to shirts. If he liked it, it was worth purchasing. If he didn't, it wasn't.

Somehow, he didn't think that was a distinction she'd get, and it wasn't one he wanted to make. Instead, he picked up his jeans, pulling them on easily.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-21 06:12 pm UTC (link)
She flushed at that, both his bald comments about sex (gay or straight, sex was still confusing and complicated enough to her that the subject made her skin go red), then at the fact that he was starting to change. Again.

Back somewhat stiff, pride giving tension to her shoulders, she crossed her arms and craned her head to look at the wall off to one side. She wouldn't turn away again, not entirely, but she wasn't exactly going to stare, either.

"I can't figure you out." Oh well now that wasn't what she'd meant to say at all, and she blamed the complete disconnect in her head for letting it slip out. The flush intensified brightly as she tried to correct it. "Not that I need to, in order to work together, but sometimes it's handy to have a stable platform to stand on before taking a jump."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-21 11:11 pm UTC (link)
"You pretty much do have to," he argued politely. He hung the dress neatly and reached for his shirt. "I mean, no, you don't need to know that I miss my family and my dog more than I'd like to admit or some shit, but you need to resolve every person in this house to your fucking satisfaction before you start running around putting your life into anyone else's hands. And since I'm assuming that at some point I'm going to be putting my fucking life into yours, I've got some of the same motivation."

The shirt comfortably settled, he reached for the gun and clipped it to his belt. Generally he preferred a shoulder holster, but it wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear, particularly not in summer. "So what doesn't make sense? I mean, I'm here, I'm ready to answer questions." He grinned at her, in an attempt to prove that he wasn't being a smart-ass about her comment. He did see the need for the stable platform; he also thought that pretty much everyone in the house should be part of that platform, but that was a process best done one person at a time.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-22 01:56 am UTC (link)
"I don't know what doesn't make sense. If I knew, I'd ask that question, pop the puzzle piece in, and see the whole picture." Her brow furrowed more deeply as she watched him now, taking in the way he settled his gun. "Why is it alright to risk killing someone with a gun?"

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-22 02:03 am UTC (link)
"Wouldn't be a accident," he said grimly. "And it's fair. Anyone can have a gun. I can shoot with it, can generally hit what I mean to, assuming someone's not fucking flailing around at the time, but it's not the same as drawing something that'll kill them that they might never see coming." He looked at her squarely as he said it, but it wasn't defensive - just serious.

"You wanna sit down and stay a minute?" He suited actions to words, taking a seat - one nice thing about the Anhalt was that at some point it'd clearly been condos or apartments or something, and the rooms were large. Large enough that he hadn't felt crowded when he'd noted that his room had a couple of chairs in a clear arrangement meant for sitting with another person. "Another part of it," he added after a moment's thought, "is that it's - you know, it's me deciding, not some fucking power that I didn't ask for, you know what I mean? It's cleaner than my power is, in a way."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-22 02:12 am UTC (link)
"That makes sense." She dropped into the other chair, pulling her feet up so that her heels rested on the edge, her hands at her ankles. "Purposeful decision versus something that happens makes complete sense. Do you not have any conscious control over your power? Is that why you don't like being touched?"

Having been given license to ask questions, Maxxie was ignoring the potential politeness rules about what might actually be asked.

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-22 02:21 am UTC (link)
He barked a laugh at that, but she didn't know; it wasn't at ignorance, just at the humour of the situation. "Nothing to do with it, princess. My power requires me to use it, and then to figure out how to use whatever I find, it's complicated, but I also have to really, really want to kill someone to make it work, and at that point it's like it's too fucking far and I might not stop myself. I mean, I think I would, you know? I'm not completely unaware. But being that angry or that hateful, whatever it fucking is, that's a hard state to realise that you're completely committed to someone's death and then say 'right, but it was a bad idea last time and it's still a bad idea.' So it's nothing with touch. And I don't know why I don't like that either, but my dad did tell me once that it was something I kind of always hated. Like, not from him and my mom, and my brother and sister and I used to play like kids do, hitting and poking and all that shit and it never bothered me, but people I don't know really well, I don't like it, and I don't like a lot of touch even then. It almost hurts, if that even makes any fucking sense, which I doubt cause it doesn't to me."

He shrugged thoughtfully. "Suppose some've it might've gotten worse after prison - there you really don't want anyone touching you, and that's no fucking joke - but like I say, always been that way. My dad said I'd do anything to avoid having aunts and uncles and cousins touching me - for a long time, they thought I was really shy, but obviously that's not the case. Took a long time before I figured out other people don't lose it when people fucking touch them and was able to say that I don't like it. And like I say, I don't like a lot of it anyway, but it works out at home, Ma can hug me all she wants and it's fine. Why don't you like it? When you touched me the other day, that wasn't a real organic action for you, you know?"

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-22 02:35 am UTC (link)
Maxxie frowned, trying to follow along with what Matt was saying. It sounded like his ability took not just intent, but almost a hyper level of intent, without the safety of changing one's mind. For the moment, she let that go, not quite ready to fully wrestle her mind around it.

The touch issues made more sense; she'd done case studies of people with similar issues. "You're not unique in that. I mean, I've read about other people who find touch physically abrasive and uncomfortable, who just can't deal with the sensation. Some of them are physical conditions, but some are psychological, but they all pretty much translate into forms of sensory overload."

Okay, a detail for a detail. "It's fake, and it's a way of lying. People hug so you think they like you. They kiss your cheek to say hello when they don't mean it. I'm tired of lies." Which wasn't all of it, but it was a part of it.

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-22 06:38 am UTC (link)
He looked at her abruptly, and there was the touch of true hostility to his gaze. "I don't need reassurance that I'm like other people," he pointed out. He'd never liked being pigeonholed, ever, and that wasn't about to change now.

But it faded after a moment and he nodded. "I can understand that. It's easy to fake something if you throw the gesture in. I mean, it's like saying please or something - might not make it any less an order - but it's more annoying."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-22 05:47 pm UTC (link)
"I wasn't trying to placate or pigeonhole, I was trying to understand," Maxxie countered. If she could match patterns, see what was like what, she could find reasons and figure things out. Once she had something of a reason, she could interact. "No one's exactly like anyone else, I know that." It was, in part, why she so often screwed things up.

"Yes." Her head bobbed in a quick nod. "Where I grew up, people hugged all the time. Before you went on the floor. After a good routine. After a bad routine. For winning, for losing. To say hello, or a tearful goodbye. And they were all a vicious pit of vipers." She smiled sweetly, with absolutely no humor or pleasure behind it. "Everyone thinks that you can't lie with body language, but they only think that because they've never been in the presence of experts. Smiles are just there to hide the teeth."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-23 04:56 am UTC (link)
"You're trying to understand all people," Matt said finally, lighting a fresh cigarette. "You're extrapolating from what I'm saying, or what people at your events were doing, it sounds like, not fucking working out what the individual is doing or saying. Sounds like a slightly ass-backwards way of going about it - people are all different." He glanced at her curiously - he supposed, even as he'd said it, that that might not make sense. "I mean, just because people there were lying about what they meant and what they did to hide it, doesn't mean that all people lie, but it sounds like that's your fucking takeaway."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-23 01:28 pm UTC (link)
"Of course people are all different, but you have to start from somewhere; that's the point of psychology." Her smile was tight. "And you'd be surprised how many people lie. And in how many ways." There were very few people she outright trusted. Two, really, that she could say: Tom and her brother. And she was positive her brother would still lie to her if he had a reason, and she could even think of a few reasons he might pick.

"And don't say go on instinct to decide about people; that doesn't work. There's no such thing as pure instinct. It's all about how some people just put the pieces together better and faster than others, and if you're not one of those people, and you try to go on instinct, it most definitely doesn't work." Relax and go with it had never worked for Maxxie, and had only served to get her into deeper trouble. She had no instinct whatsoever for people.

And she was talking way too much about herself. Lips pressed together, frowning, and a slow impish smile started as she remembered something. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the three bottles of nail polish she had there and let them rest on her palm. Her gaze flicked from the colors to Matt, then back again to the colors, and after a moment, she slipped two back into her pocket and held the last one out to him. The smile grew. "It'd look good with both the dress, and your eyes."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-24 05:41 am UTC (link)
Again she ducked the question of who she was. Matt noted it, but at this point he wasn't terribly surprised by it. Curious, yes - very curious. But surprised, no.

Her words caught at him, though; he took the polish with an appreciative smile - a nice shade and one he didn't have. "That's not a thing," he said. It was inarticulate as hell, but he was back to the feeling of being off-balance, of being pigeonholed in a way that didn't work. "I mean, I don't secretly long to be a girl or something, you know? It's just clothes, I like clothes, and I decided a long time ago not to, like, let the fucking norms of society dictate, you know?" He shrugged, his sense of discomfort increasing. "I wear that the same way I wear jeans. I see something I like, I buy it, I wear it. I'm not, like, planning to change my name to Vanessa or something."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-24 12:25 pm UTC (link)
"You said that," she pointed out, and a small smile flickered. "Or at least, that just wear it. And I accepted it. Although the sad thing about dresses is that you can only wear them sometimes, otherwise they get in the way. Don't seem to have very many opportunities to dress up."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-25 02:47 am UTC (link)
"It's weird," he said finally. "I feel like you do this every day. You know, get up, put on pants, no thought that two hundred years ago, it would've probably been better to be seen wearing your underwear on the outside. You know, you, where you means girls. Women. Both. Shit, I don't fucking know. You can wear anything, and no one ever assumes you're saying something about who you like to fuck or whether you think you were born in the right body, you know? Well, most people don't, but the rest are dumb rednecks out in Orting who should've been shot a long fucking time ago. Me, I have to explain that. Worse, I feel like I have to explain it. For fuck's sake, it's clothes. I mean, if the world wants to see me naked, they fucking well can." He grinned at that, a trace of viciousness to the look. "Probably best not to go there. But you know, seriously, you got it good, princess. And I mostly do, I'm not saying I don't, but there's still the whole ooh, freakshow thing. Fuck it."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-25 02:30 pm UTC (link)
"But the world hasn't changed all that much," Maxxie countered, warming up to the debate (and oh how she loved debate). "If someone sees a woman in trousers, then she's as good as a guy, as long as those pants aren't too floofy or feminine. If she's wearing a business suit, then she's trying to be a man but feminine at the same time. But if she's wearing a long flower-print skirt that summery and bright, then she's obviously a weak little hothouse flower who needs to be protected."

She drew in a deep breath, nowhere near done yet, "so see, if you go out wearing that same flowery dress, it's not that you're a freakshow, it's that you're being looked at the same way we are and no one ever understands why a guy would want to be weak. But all you're thinking is pretty and hey it looks cool, but the rest of the world says that's a pushover pussy sort of thing to wear. They don't laugh at girls for being weak, just think it's right, better than when we wear suits or pants. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to go out heroing in a frilly dress just to shock people when I start kicking butt."

She shook her head. "Someday people will just see clothes and not label them. Maybe. It's all sociologically complicated."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-27 02:11 am UTC (link)
"Not like it was even a hundred years ago," Matt countered sharply. "I mean, seriously, there's been fucking progress."

He gestured uselessly, trying to think of what he could say to prove his point, but he wasn't that well versed in history. Instead, he said "You're right, though - fag's the least bad of it, I wear that out. Pisses me off, honestly, for a lot of reasons. Like, fuck, your life's kind of limited if that's what you're worried about."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-27 02:50 am UTC (link)
"There's been progress, but a lot of it is subconscious and still there. They don't even know they think it, just that they do." She didn't understand all the time why people acted like they did, but she was very very good at picking it apart in a scientific manner, and those logical pathways made sense to her. She wished everything about people were as easy to understand.

"That's because most people are idiots who only look inward, believe what they were taught by their parents, and never bother to try to become anything else," Maxxie said bluntly. "Most people are that limited."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-27 03:26 am UTC (link)
"I don't believe that," he said flatly. "Call it fucking optimism if you want, but seriously - 22nd century. How the fuck is it even reasonable to assume that what you are is all you can be?"

He stood and paced the room, smoke trailing from his fingers, and added "And yeah, I fucking know that it's true, but honestly, you'd think they all drank the fucking intellect suppressant by choice. Course, out in Gold Bar, they did, so obviously I can talk too fucking loudly."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-27 02:30 pm UTC (link)
"People are idiots in general," Maxxie said. "For every one that has a clue about the world around them, there are another dozen who'd rather keep their head in the sand and not look up, because if they do, they might have to deal with something challenging or confusing, like a boy in a dress, or a joker who's the sweetest guy ever, or just about anything. Human nature retreats from change, and it's stupid, but true. It's like we need to force feed them all wakeup juice."

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-27 03:19 pm UTC (link)
He wondered if Maxxie's experience of the world was even worse than he'd expected. She was talking like some of this was new now, and he believed it wasn't. Maybe not wildly accepted yet, but dismissing all people as stupid certainly suggested that she had a narrow view.

Then again, he could assume the same, he supposed, because of his own insistence that people were generally smart. It seemed, the more he thought about it, like a pointless argument, because neither of them was going to convince the other of the basic tenets of their lives - the optimism of his, and the apparent cynicism of hers.

"When did you start training?" He wondered if that was when it had started, for her - all the years of something she presumably liked to do, subverted to the purpose of other people.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-27 04:22 pm UTC (link)
"I started gymnastics and tae kwon do both when I was four, but I started in Colorado when I was seven." She relaxed, because despite the difficulties over time, talking about her gymnastics career -- the good parts -- was easy.

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[info]palehorses
2010-06-29 01:11 am UTC (link)
"How long did you like it?" It wasn't said with hostility; he looked at her curiously. "I mean, you sound like you really couldn't fucking stand the people you were dealing with by the end of it, and if it were me, it'd probably poison my love of what I was doing, you know? Curious to know if you felt that, or if the fact you loved it made up for a lot."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-06-29 01:45 am UTC (link)
She took a step back, arms crossed and head tilted with her chin up. "I love it. Gymnastics, I'm figuring you mean. I love being out on the floor. I love performing. I just don't like people. Give me a place to work out and I'll be fine, because that's what I do."

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-03 02:57 am UTC (link)
He shrugged casually and took a drag. "You don't talk about it like it's something you like, you know." It was mild. "The people overshadow or something."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-04 01:59 am UTC (link)
"Which part of I don't like people did you not hear?" Maxxie snapped. Why were they talking about her? How did they get onto this topic and how could she change it? "What do you love doing best?"

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-04 06:33 pm UTC (link)
"Finding out why you want to know about other people but you won't trade in conversation," he said. "Seriously, I'm telling you all about me - like I fucking care, I crap on about myself all the fucking time, but you're sitting there with a fucking notebook, watching me and probably everyone else, but you don't trade, you know?"

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-04 07:23 pm UTC (link)
"I'm trying to understand you," Maxxie said. "Because on instinct, I sort of don't not like you. Might even like you, and I don't understand why. And my instincts aren't always that great to begin with." In fact, they'd gotten her into lovely problems she'd rather not think about, thanks.

"I don't know what you really want to know. I mean. Yes, I love gymnastics. I'd show you that, and I can tell you how it killed me to quit the Metahuman team but I don't think that's safe anymore. And they won't let me compete where I want to compete, and they took away my medals. National titles. Plural. And they're gone now like they never existed, and I worked my ass off for those." Her hands were on her hips, chin thrust up, frustration making the words spew out. "I just don't know what it is you want to know."

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-05 01:44 am UTC (link)
"Just saying. There's a give and take to conversation, and you don't do it. You couldn't get the subject away from yourself any faster without blistering your ass." He looked at her levelly. "Just pointing out, it's a little obvious that you don't talk about yourself, and fuck, it's actually really obvious. You're curious about me? I'm curious about you. I don't have a fucking list, though, and I seriously don't mind; just pointing out you don't hide your curiousity and your unwillingness to talk about yourself well. If hiding it's the point." He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at her again.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-05 02:14 am UTC (link)
Maxxie pressed her lips together. "You like to poke at people too. Or is that just me?" she asked curiously.

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-05 02:38 am UTC (link)
"Nope. You're just more likely to need actual poking. Most people are pretty willing to fucking talk about themselves as long as you'll let them." He didn't really mind one way or the other that saying that had made her angry; it was more obtrusive than he liked, the way she listened without ... well, without listening. Just listening and taking notes like there'd be a test later.

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-05 02:55 am UTC (link)
"Most people are self-centered and only care about themselves," Maxxie replied. "They don't actually want to hear about anyone else. But I think other people are far more interesting." Which was true. Even if she didn't have trust issues a mile wide, and confusion about how people actually worked, she found them interesting.

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-05 10:31 pm UTC (link)
"That pretty much assumes that no one's curious to know what they're getting in return," he said mildly. "Just sayin'." He grinned. "I think I've said that about five times now, but hey, I never did really have what you might call an expanded vocabulary. I fell in love with colloqualisms at a young age, and never got the fuck over it, you know?"

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-05 10:35 pm UTC (link)
An amused smirk slipped free. "Didn't notice that at all, what with the love affair you have with fuck."

And she did assume no one really cared to know about her in return. Everything they'd want to know was public knowledge, and the rest were the things that could hurt her. It seemed like a good divide.

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-08 12:59 am UTC (link)
That was about the fiftieth time she'd ducked him. He hadn't given up yet, but he had to admit, he was going to have to figure out a more subtle way to get anything back from her.

But he didn't say that; instead, he smiled and said, "No, I've got more words. Like ... shit." The pause was deliberately exaggerated, his face parodying the search for a word. "Yeah. Shit. I can say that too. Or ... damn, I think I've heard that one used too."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-08 01:25 am UTC (link)
Maxxie laughed out loud at that, grinning. "So you could practically make a sentence out of those. Like... damn that fuckin' shit's good..." She tailed off into a giggle, an honest sound.

"Oh, the news crews are going to eat you up."

It wasn't just that the conversation right now was safe, it was fun. And silly. And Matt could be a snark but also a bit of a goof, and she liked that.

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-08 10:30 pm UTC (link)
"More like run in fear," he said. "If they don't, I mean, I can show them my mad-dog face or something." He bared his teeth; unfortunately, it looked more like a really ridiculous smile than a threat. "Thee? Ike thith."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-09 12:48 am UTC (link)
Maxxie giggled. "So imposing. Growl like that and people are more likely to ruffle your hair and go awwww than run in fear. Maybe you need to add in a growl."

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[info]palehorses
2010-07-09 02:08 am UTC (link)
He kept his teeth bared for a moment longer, but let his face collapse into mock sadness. "Too cute to be a killer, that's me. Also, who doesn't like head scritches and feeding? Don't think I"d want to know someone who fucking didn't."

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[info]maxblinks
2010-07-09 02:16 am UTC (link)
Someone who doesn't like to be touched. But he seemed to be asking for it, and she was curious what he would do if she did, so she reached out to lightly scritch his head, behind his ear, down to the nape of his neck. "But I'm not going to feed you unless you start to purr."

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