"I wasn't not choosing you." She doesn't expect him to decide that that makes it okay, but she feels it's an important enough distinction to make. "I wasn't choosing somebody else over you. I was choosing keeping a secret over telling a secret."
"It's that kind of stuff. That kind of shit. Part of it is, anyway; the part that's bothering me more." Which happens to be the part she can't - won't - tell him about directly. "The rest of it's on the network. I lost my temper a little bit."
"I saw." At least some of it. He assumes there are private portions; there always are. "I know you can't tell me details but just tell me if I'm following you alright. Someone is upset with you because you won't share someone else's secret?"
"Uh-uh." She shakes her head. "I was using the thing with you like-- like a comparison. It feels like the same kind of situation to me, but it ain't the same. It ain't about secrets."
It's good to hear her admit it. It concerns him, though, from the standpoint of someone who was screwed over by a lot of similar choices made around him. "How important is this thing to you that you won't change?"
"I think it's important here. It ain't always what I'd do at home, but it's part of how I wanna be here." She rests her cheek against the arm of the couch. "I don't know how Iris does it."
"Does she do this?" An honest question. Lark confided in her his first time through, and she never made him regret that. "She's trustworthy but I've also never seen her face pressure to give up confidences the way you have."
"I don't think she does. She talks to nice people, and nasty people, and she brings people stuff in Zero no matter what they did. She stuck with Victor through everything, and Roderick, and everybody who's done awful stuff; she hung out with 'em and talked to 'em and tried to listen and understand no matter what. She does a lot of the same stuff I do, only nobody gives her shit for it or feels betrayed by it. I don't know how she does it. She's got something I don't have, and I don't know what it is."
Lark has noticed a difference in how Tiffany is treated, both by other wardens and by inmates.
"I would have been angry at her if she had been the one in the infirmary with me instead. I would have been angry with anyone. I might have reacted worse to her, actually."
But you know it's for you too, right? If you tell me stuff I won't repeat it to anybody. And I'll still be there if you do awful shit. You know that, right?
Sometimes. I don't know what I would be if I wasn't someone who was afraid of losing my life.
Or losing my people. [That's a new sensation for him. His people are usually fairly disposable. But now, he thinks often of Alec tersely running him through gun drills. He thinks of himself trying to give Tommy and Rey one last good night. Of swimming with Nina, and hugging Tiffany to him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
"I would have been angry at her if she had been the one in the infirmary with me instead. I would have been angry with anyone. I might have reacted worse to her, actually."
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
[She doesn't relax, but she unfurls a little, not curling in on herself quite so tightly.]
Are you scared, Lark?
no subject
Or losing my people. [That's a new sensation for him. His people are usually fairly disposable. But now, he thinks often of Alec tersely running him through gun drills. He thinks of himself trying to give Tommy and Rey one last good night. Of swimming with Nina, and hugging Tiffany to him.
Things are very different here. ]
no subject
no subject
So I'm afraid, more often than I want to admit. I have so much to lose now and I never intended to have any of it in the first place.
no subject
[She doesn't mean it as an insult; she's not calling him callous. If anything, she sounds envious.]
no subject
Is this the most afraid you've ever been?
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)