Victorian weenie au

[cagedinflesh]

 Melodica playing in the distance

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[gehennawind]

"Perhaps you shall live by--"

Agitated, Paloma roots around for the words failing her. One of her hands waves animatedly during this dilemma. ESL ain't easy, bud. "Yes. I saw you. And so you are not alone."

[cagedinflesh]

"...I have always attempted to simply pretend that part of myself does not exist." Therefore he doesn't even want to talk about this now. "So you see the trouble."

[gehennawind]

"It will be a ghost of you whether I vanish or not," Paloma says, matter of fact.

Just as the hope she denied of him has been a ghost to her.

[cagedinflesh]

She really doesn't understand what it is that upsets him about this, he thinks. But she's trying to be kind and understanding, clearly, and certainly is, or would be if he wasn't so fundamentally duplicitous. And there isn't really anything to say. To fill the silence and stillness, and without thinking through his actions, he gets up, kisses her, however briefly, and goes to the door.

[gehennawind]

Likely she doesn't and cannot until the two of them reach a basic foundation of truths. Does the fear of what his truth is eat at him as it does Paloma? Is she only an excuse for self-flagellation? Are these both true? Is ...

Oh.

Paloma finds that making anything coherent out of the emotional jumble is a fool's quest. Very, very lost and confused, she tilts slowly back until her head's at rest. By the time the cab gets moving she's got her gloves off again, touching her lip like the silly young woman she couldn't think had survived.