[Myr navigates so easily and gracefully within his home that it's almost easy to forget that he can't see, to the point where L grows subconsciously a little slower about removing his clothing. His reticence isn't relegated to self-consciousness alone, however; nakedness is a kind of vulnerability, too, and the chill that nips and needles at his exposed skin is a reminder that "talking" means difficult questions with corresponding difficult answers.
He listens to the ambient, static rush of water for a few minutes, and his mind is troublingly blank as he attempts to process what Myr is asking. If he remembered in any great detail the events leading up to what had happened, he probably would have had enough of a handle on the situation to keep it from progressing the way it had. But there have been other nights and other incidents; specifically, the night of his birthday stands out. So does his failure to safeguard himself and get a necessary monster Bond when his life was stretched so incendiary and thin against the haunting ache of infinite stars.
Niles' recent words drift across his thoughts. That is what you want right? To die? You want an angry drunk to send you through a window and crack your skull. Failing that you want me to find you and finish you off. You want that pastry to be poisoned because you want an easy way out... But what I'm saying is that I don't want to watch your pain. I want to cause it.
And then, of course, the answer in L's own voice.
One person causes my suffering. He's a joyless master of the craft...
L is joyless; L is a master of so many crafts, and an architect of so much that is pointless evasion of pain, and then boredom, coming full circle once they prove to be their own temporary remedies in a torturous cycle.
He knows what Myr is really asking. He doesn't begin to know how to answer it.]
Because I'm a gambler.
[A supreme aristocrat, in the words of an author. Dostoevsky was dead; most of the men L admired were.]
I knew that I could win or lose against Niles, and that there would come a point where I'd have no control over something. He was determined enough to catch me unawares eventually, and I was getting tired... so I let go of control, and accepted the outcome on my own terms.
[He won because I let him, which is not the same as a true win. It's scored differently; it matters.]
When you have a committed stalker, everywhere is dangerous. When you have an absent lover, everywhere is sad, and so... leaving yourself is the logical way to separate yourself from all of it. The danger and sadness remain, when you come back, but... just knowing the option to leave exists, that you can always do it again, is something like a refuge.
no subject
He listens to the ambient, static rush of water for a few minutes, and his mind is troublingly blank as he attempts to process what Myr is asking. If he remembered in any great detail the events leading up to what had happened, he probably would have had enough of a handle on the situation to keep it from progressing the way it had. But there have been other nights and other incidents; specifically, the night of his birthday stands out. So does his failure to safeguard himself and get a necessary monster Bond when his life was stretched so incendiary and thin against the haunting ache of infinite stars.
Niles' recent words drift across his thoughts. That is what you want right? To die? You want an angry drunk to send you through a window and crack your skull. Failing that you want me to find you and finish you off. You want that pastry to be poisoned because you want an easy way out... But what I'm saying is that I don't want to watch your pain. I want to cause it.
And then, of course, the answer in L's own voice.
One person causes my suffering. He's a joyless master of the craft...
L is joyless; L is a master of so many crafts, and an architect of so much that is pointless evasion of pain, and then boredom, coming full circle once they prove to be their own temporary remedies in a torturous cycle.
He knows what Myr is really asking. He doesn't begin to know how to answer it.]
Because I'm a gambler.
[A supreme aristocrat, in the words of an author. Dostoevsky was dead; most of the men L admired were.]
I knew that I could win or lose against Niles, and that there would come a point where I'd have no control over something. He was determined enough to catch me unawares eventually, and I was getting tired... so I let go of control, and accepted the outcome on my own terms.
[He won because I let him, which is not the same as a true win. It's scored differently; it matters.]
When you have a committed stalker, everywhere is dangerous. When you have an absent lover, everywhere is sad, and so... leaving yourself is the logical way to separate yourself from all of it. The danger and sadness remain, when you come back, but... just knowing the option to leave exists, that you can always do it again, is something like a refuge.