"It doesn't matter. What you are to one another isn't my business."[break][break]

Hadn't he been the one to dredge all this up in the first place? Back in his office, he was the one who'd asked her what her relationship to BARNABY FINCH was, and what flower he preferred of all things.[break][break]

He'd been the one to let loose those doubts in her head, letting them run rampant and unchecked. He'd been the one to make her doubt what she and Barnaby were to one another.[break][break]

Which she didn't. There was nothing to doubt, because Barnaby had done nothing wrong. There had been no rule he'd broken. She'd just misunderstood, that was all.[break][break]

Jealousy had nothing to do with anything. Obviously.[break][break]

The tunnel continued for an eternity. Their destination felt impossibly out of reach. Every second wasted in his company was a trial.[break][break]

"My feelings on the matter are irrelevant, one way or the other."[break][break]

lh4SMHAR

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

An eyebrow arched in disbelief. Arceus, he was exasperating.[break][break]

"Beckett, let's not pretend you care about my feelings."[break][break]

The one time he'd ever been vulnerable with her, she'd been hideously repulsed by him.[break][break]

That he'd expose his willingness to leave Rocket, to start over, to be a better person, insulted her on such a personal level she couldn't fully explain it. It was the contempt she held for Remiel Calcifet, for Isaac Merlo, for Rowan Wrynn, and anyone else who dared to think they could leave this organization they'd sold their souls to.[break][break]

There was no reason to believe THEO BECKETT wouldn't be equally repulsed by her own humanity.[break][break]

Regret stung too late, the stabs of self-rebuke relentlessly chiding her for revealing her petty insecurities to him, while she attempted to keep her expression unbothered and voice cool.[break][break]

"You're adults. Your behavior with one another doesn't affect me, professionally or personally. Making me irrelevant."[break][break]

CpMgZNd8

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Have you ever considered that you're just boring?"[break][break]

She wouldn't have described her spirits as 'lifted' so much as her anger had been roused. The origin point of the conversation had eluded her completely at this point; as baffling and mercurial as her moods could seem to him from the outside, to her, all this had been a reasonable and sensible response to him.[break][break]

Her forbidden curiosity had been sated, she regretted it, and she was furious at him for having indulged her and proven her greatest fears to be true.[break][break]

So naturally, yes, she was blaming him for her own dangerous pursuit of knowledge.[break][break]

"Any other topic of conversation would be preferable to listening to you drone on about the mission. Or fishing," she added, a hint of disdain in the word.[break][break]

4BsOgJUU

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The calmness of his reply irked her. It was the unfairness of it, really -- that they could be walking side by side, performing the same tedious task for the same organization, sleeping with the man even -- and he could act as if nothing was wrong in the slightest while every fiber of her being radiated with frustration.[break][break]

"Do I have to do all the work?" she complained, focusing her attention on her Pokemon as they carried their materials onwards with carefully placed vines.[break][break]

A familiarity struck her suddenly in her exhaustion, and she laughed a bit, releasing some of the tension even though her biting tone didn't leave her.[break][break]

"You're just like him in this way. Nothing bothers you. I've often wondered how that must be."[break][break]

Anger turned inwards, churning and frothing with deep-seated bitterness.[break][break]

"It seems preferable to the alternative."[break][break]

gCQsgxIJ

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"What a dull lesson that would be, with you to teach it."[break][break]

Suppressing her emotions had taken time to learn. Erasing them, though, had never worked.[break][break]

It took a constant distance from herself to achieve that mask. She had to deliberately watch her every word and action, filtering all of her behavior so that none of her inherent expressiveness betrayed her.[break][break]

He might even remember that part of her, back from when she was an admin in Rocket. She'd held her tongue at the Transfer of Power when others burned with outrage. She'd known when to swallow her pride and to hide her perspective.[break][break]

Wo-chien had just ripped what remained of her restraint wide open, gleefully reopening a scarred-over and infected wound.[break][break]

"No, I think this is something you're born with, rather than taught," she sighed, crossing her arms. "Some people simply... don't care about anything. And never have."[break][break]

MBGdrPi3

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You'll have to be more specific than that."[break][break]

She built more distance between them, walking at an impassioned stride as if trying to shake off her own shadow.[break][break]

Dim light revealed the winding path ahead, narrowing to a thin point in the darkness. Her hand reached out to feel the stone walls, steadying herself as she gingerly made her way forward.[break][break]

"I've been many people. Which one interests you?"[break][break]

Hz7R7EMP

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]