You do say a lot with your mouth. [ Grinning. ] I guess I'd find it hard to not use actions to express myself. Still. Not talking really isn't that hard.
I'm highly social. [ It would have come out prim, were he actually capable of it. As it is, it just sounds like someone choosing to be humorously oblivious. ] Please, it's totally hard. I'm pretty sure I just demonstrated how hard it actually is.
The other way would be saying that you have a very talented mouth. [ she can be oblique if she wants. ] I'm trained in not having any reason to talk, actually. And in stake-outs, I guess.
I don't think I've actually had the chance yet to show you how talented my mouth can be. [ But see, that's the problem, not having a reason to talk. He's always got a reason to talk - there is always a reason behind why he's about to say something. Maybe thin, but still, a reason. ] So you're still having thoughts and stuff, you're just not finding reasons to voice them.
Given the talent you've showed with it so far, I'll look forward to it. [ which is, funnily enough, a sign of trust. she has weird trust markers sometimes. and while she says it's not having any reason to talk, it would be more accurate to say trained in having a lot of very good reasons not to talk. people's lives among them. though not used to having reasons to talk is another one of the reasons she's quiet. ] I have lots of thoughts, thanks. But I'm not used to having someone to tell them to. [ really there's just a lot of converging reasons she's not a super talkative person. around him is the closest she gets to it. ]
[ wait, the looking forward to it or the reason to talk thing. which one is the sign of trust.
he can probably be argued to having had both lessons in not talking and lessons in talking. it's all very conflicting. ] Hey I didn't say you didn't have thoughts, but I mean, some people can legitimately think about nothing. Or, not think about anything. If you're thinking about nothing technically that's a thought, that's just thinking about a void. Totally reasonable thing to think about. Lots of math involved. And potentially wormholes. Definitely black holes. [ what was all that about talking ]
[ the looking forward to it sex is complicated and so are her feelings about it.
these sorts of things generally are. hers just all verged on 'no talking', which had been weird and hard at first because she was a talkative teenager and a talkative young adult and then she'd had to learn how to shut that down really fast. also wow that was seriously a lot of talking. ] I tried the thinking about nothing thing. Not a lot of fun.
[ oh, well that's like the total opposite of how tony regards sex. sex is a thing and he doesn't have feelings about it. (except that he totally does have feelings about it, he just as so many he doesn't know what to do with them and a cascade failure starts to take place. although, to be fair, this isn't to do with sex in general. just affection and basically positive interaction between people.) ] Really? I don't think you did it right. Zoning out?
[ it's the whole intimacy and closeness thing and also that sex can make it really hard to keep her empathy in check. plus that she sometimes finds it very hard to let herself be on the receiving end of things. it feels too vulnerable most of the time. also seriously someday he's going to have to figure that out, having cascade failures from positive interactions isn't a very good thing really. ] Not zoning out. Nothing else to think about. Only so many times you can go over the fibonacci sequence in your head.
[ okay that makes sense. It's a vague source of frustration on his side, because Tony long ago learned to associate the physical with the emotional on an interchangeable scale, with things one can directly point to being the things that allow one to gauge a relationship. People connect to each other with wires and pathways just like anything else, it's just that the wires are physical intimacy and the pathways are random bestowals of generosity. So when she, or anyone else, doesn't take something, it's basically just a refusal of his own feelings. Which is like, perfect, right. They're both so screwed up sometimes. ] There are sequences way more interesting than that one, please, it's almost prosaic.
[ They are both seriously screwed up. It's kind of like a running experiment in precisely how screwed up can two people be, frequently in opposite directions, and still somehow manage to keep a relationship that makes them both happy. At least most of the time she's happy to take what he offers, except for under specific circumstances. And slowly becoming more comfortable with others, like she can accept them without feeling like she's overweighing a balance somewhere. ] Went through a lot of them, too. Fibonacci's prosaic, yeah, but it's nicely basic.
Could teach you some new ones. A bit more complicated. Bit easier to settle into. Fibby-boy's not the only one who did sequencing. [ Which is weird, right, because he doesn't have a problem accepting things from other people. Some of them are superficial, but like, from her. He would accept anything she tried to give to him. He, in fact, wants to give, which is apparently what she wants to do as well, so the logical here would be to simply let her give to him and he'll just take it and do nothing. Except he'd feel horrible about himself, so he has to give you something in return. He's not even really all that into the tat-for-tat, reciprocation thing, but damn. Really?
It's all just very very strange and complicated and he'll be happy for the day she trusts him enough to not have to think about it, or lets him go down on her purely because he wants to hear the sounds she makes, or another handjob and this time not because they're biding time until he gets hard again and they can go back to what they really wanted to be doing. ]
I like learning new things. Shouldn't need them again, but they're interesting. [ Emotions complicate things so very very quickly. One night stands (hardly even that), those had been easy back when she was still okay enough with going out in public to do them. Because it was like a contract, basically, both parties agree to have sex and get each other off if possible, and when there wasn't any emotion attached that made it easier to keep empathy on the down low.
And then there's him. And she can't keep things shut down with him, which means she shows him things she doesn't always mean to show him. And to a certain extent, whether it's intended or not, being able to make her feel good is power over her, and the idea of showing him that scared her even if she felt sure he wouldn't ever use it against her. It becomes easier to consider over time, though. Ingrained fear pushed aside for trust, old worries built over with new memories. He'll get his day. She'll probably be quite pleased to have reached that trust too. ]
[ Shrug. Sequencing was always something he sort of did so people would let him do things that were actually interesting. Or took some sort of thought beyond rote memorization of a pattern and then just sticking to it. ] Technically most of them are just following a mathematical principle or criterion to whatever degree you feel like doing math. Although a lot of the time it is just easier to memorize the numbers in sequence anyway.
[ Oh yay the thing he was playing with is finally worked itself into the right configuration. He totally doesn't look mildly surprised at all, but he does lean over and attach it to something, then glance at the screen again. And seriously, making people feel good isn't power. Making them feel bad is power, if anything, because it's not hard to go out and find something random to salve the pain - people are always looking for something to ameliorate their problems, and that's because people are always causing other people problems. Of course, you'll feel the best when you're getting that from another person, sure, but there are ways to get yourself through it until people as a whole are palatable again. It's just so much more often that it's people who create the issue, and objects that bridge the gap. ]
[ She used it as a thought exercise in prison, mostly. Rote memorization of a pattern was pretty useful at that point. ] It's more fun to do the actual work, though. A lot more fun. And it takes more time.
[ For him, maybe, but she's entirely used to feeling bad. Feeling bad was kind of the norm, really, to the point where having the ability to make her feel bad wasn't any kind of threat at all. So the ability to make her feel good, that became the rarity, and subsequently in some situations a threat. That's changed, finally, here with him, but it's still a slow process of realization that it's going to stay changed. That sometimes people just want you to feel good without questionable ulterior motives. And people create the issues, yes. But up until him she hadn't really found anything that bridged the gap. (Hadn't really gone looking, either, but.) Objects don't hold almost any meaning to her. ]
You and I had very different approaches to academic life. [ Or indeed probably life in general, but hey.
Well, he does have a fair amount of helpful instinct in terms of 'How to Keep an Empath Happy: For Dummies', &c. Being content with things yourself is definitely one of those aspects, but really, you keep an empath happy the way you'd keep anyone else happy - by making them happy. Not a difficult concept. More effort in the execution, but what isn't like that? ]
Academically it's better to get it over as fast as possible, yeah, sure. [ Mostly life in general really.
Things worth working for, and so forth? And at first, the amount of happiness that came with being with him had seemed scary to her. Because the problem with happiness is that it can always, always be taken away. It had taken her a little while to realize that nobody was trying to take this away from her. That the only threat to it was their own issues, and she could work with that. ]
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he can probably be argued to having had both lessons in not talking and lessons in talking. it's all very conflicting. ] Hey I didn't say you didn't have thoughts, but I mean, some people can legitimately think about nothing. Or, not think about anything. If you're thinking about nothing technically that's a thought, that's just thinking about a void. Totally reasonable thing to think about. Lots of math involved. And potentially wormholes. Definitely black holes. [ what was all that about talking ]
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these sorts of things generally are. hers just all verged on 'no talking', which had been weird and hard at first because she was a talkative teenager and a talkative young adult and then she'd had to learn how to shut that down really fast. also wow that was seriously a lot of talking. ] I tried the thinking about nothing thing. Not a lot of fun.
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It's all just very very strange and complicated and he'll be happy for the day she trusts him enough to not have to think about it, or lets him go down on her purely because he wants to hear the sounds she makes, or another handjob and this time not because they're biding time until he gets hard again and they can go back to what they really wanted to be doing. ]
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And then there's him. And she can't keep things shut down with him, which means she shows him things she doesn't always mean to show him. And to a certain extent, whether it's intended or not, being able to make her feel good is power over her, and the idea of showing him that scared her even if she felt sure he wouldn't ever use it against her. It becomes easier to consider over time, though. Ingrained fear pushed aside for trust, old worries built over with new memories. He'll get his day. She'll probably be quite pleased to have reached that trust too. ]
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[ Oh yay the thing he was playing with is finally worked itself into the right configuration. He totally doesn't look mildly surprised at all, but he does lean over and attach it to something, then glance at the screen again. And seriously, making people feel good isn't power. Making them feel bad is power, if anything, because it's not hard to go out and find something random to salve the pain - people are always looking for something to ameliorate their problems, and that's because people are always causing other people problems. Of course, you'll feel the best when you're getting that from another person, sure, but there are ways to get yourself through it until people as a whole are palatable again. It's just so much more often that it's people who create the issue, and objects that bridge the gap. ]
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[ For him, maybe, but she's entirely used to feeling bad. Feeling bad was kind of the norm, really, to the point where having the ability to make her feel bad wasn't any kind of threat at all. So the ability to make her feel good, that became the rarity, and subsequently in some situations a threat. That's changed, finally, here with him, but it's still a slow process of realization that it's going to stay changed. That sometimes people just want you to feel good without questionable ulterior motives. And people create the issues, yes. But up until him she hadn't really found anything that bridged the gap. (Hadn't really gone looking, either, but.) Objects don't hold almost any meaning to her. ]
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Well, he does have a fair amount of helpful instinct in terms of 'How to Keep an Empath Happy: For Dummies', &c. Being content with things yourself is definitely one of those aspects, but really, you keep an empath happy the way you'd keep anyone else happy - by making them happy. Not a difficult concept. More effort in the execution, but what isn't like that? ]
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Things worth working for, and so forth? And at first, the amount of happiness that came with being with him had seemed scary to her. Because the problem with happiness is that it can always, always be taken away. It had taken her a little while to realize that nobody was trying to take this away from her. That the only threat to it was their own issues, and she could work with that. ]