[ That doesn't feel true. Not entirely. Byerly touches his chin and smiles and watches Wash like he's imagining the man cutting loose, but...No, it doesn't feel right. Not with what he's said about who he is and where he's come from. If war made him serious, if war convinced him that he had to be useful (or what? have his throat cut? be turned out? starve?) then it would have done so early. Easy conclusion, that, breadcrumbs scattered for By to find.
No. So I was like you isn't speaking to Byerly-the-jester. It's speaking to Byerly-the-liar. Strange to imagine that, too, the serious taciturn man playing the clown...Perhaps his was a different sort of clowning. A different sort of lying. After all, there are a hundred thousand different ways to deflect attention, hundreds of roles to play. Even normal people, people who aren't spies, do that sort of thing. Construct lies, hide behind masks. But what Wash is hinting at seems to go beyond that.
So if he's speaking to a man like him...Some strange impulse towards honesty draws an honest comment out of him. ]
Sounds exhausting.
[ On the surface, it could simply be commenting on the partying and the puking. Byerly wouldn't make a comment without having that safeguard of the logical interpretation. But below that, underneath, it's something truer. This job gets to him. It wears him down. The double-thinking and triple-thinking, the paranoia, the constant playacting...It gets to him. ]
Is that why you grew out of it? Lost the energy for it?
no subject
No. So I was like you isn't speaking to Byerly-the-jester. It's speaking to Byerly-the-liar. Strange to imagine that, too, the serious taciturn man playing the clown...Perhaps his was a different sort of clowning. A different sort of lying. After all, there are a hundred thousand different ways to deflect attention, hundreds of roles to play. Even normal people, people who aren't spies, do that sort of thing. Construct lies, hide behind masks. But what Wash is hinting at seems to go beyond that.
So if he's speaking to a man like him...Some strange impulse towards honesty draws an honest comment out of him. ]
Sounds exhausting.
[ On the surface, it could simply be commenting on the partying and the puking. Byerly wouldn't make a comment without having that safeguard of the logical interpretation. But below that, underneath, it's something truer. This job gets to him. It wears him down. The double-thinking and triple-thinking, the paranoia, the constant playacting...It gets to him. ]
Is that why you grew out of it? Lost the energy for it?