[Louis stumbles over words like consequences and limitations, tries to plead practicality and suggests scheduling to somebody who doesn't know if they'll see the end of the week. He lays out the case for the finite resources of his love like a corporation defending a negligence claim and all Prior can pay attention to is himself.
He sounds crazy, here, like he's going crazy already. No guards up, nothing to deflect this with or use to protect himself. He's wearing his nervous system on the outside, raw and twitching. The attempts to attack - We have reached a verdict, Your Honor, this man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing - sound more like pleas, and as soon as Louis turns his back on the argument Prior pitches over, holding himself because no one else will.
Like an echo, the Prior in the corner tips his head into his hands.]
He never had the framework for it. People don't, but other people stay. Other people have people who stay and build something, not destroy it.
[Destroy them. Because Prior's shattering now, visibly. I'm dying screamed across the room in a last desperate attempt to reach some human emotion in Louis, to try to make him understand the terror of dealing with that alone, the terror of being alone at all, now. Do you know what that is? Love? Do you know what love is? We lived together four and a half years.
And Louis, ever a gifted man at finding the worst possible thing to say at the worst possible time pulls off a prime achievement.
I have to find some way to save myself.
It hangs in the air like the afterecho of a slap.]
no subject
He sounds crazy, here, like he's going crazy already. No guards up, nothing to deflect this with or use to protect himself. He's wearing his nervous system on the outside, raw and twitching. The attempts to attack - We have reached a verdict, Your Honor, this man's heart is deficient. He loves, but his love is worth nothing - sound more like pleas, and as soon as Louis turns his back on the argument Prior pitches over, holding himself because no one else will.
Like an echo, the Prior in the corner tips his head into his hands.]
He never had the framework for it. People don't, but other people stay. Other people have people who stay and build something, not destroy it.
[Destroy them. Because Prior's shattering now, visibly. I'm dying screamed across the room in a last desperate attempt to reach some human emotion in Louis, to try to make him understand the terror of dealing with that alone, the terror of being alone at all, now. Do you know what that is? Love? Do you know what love is? We lived together four and a half years.
And Louis, ever a gifted man at finding the worst possible thing to say at the worst possible time pulls off a prime achievement.
I have to find some way to save myself.
It hangs in the air like the afterecho of a slap.]