[Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. To still be bothered by it meant that Felix still had some place in his orbit, and Tucker had blown him off a fucking tower. He had won. He had been the goddamn victor, for all of Felix’s useless posturing. That dickslit had no place in anything anymore because Tucker had made sure of it.
Felix hadn’t been faster or stronger than him. The Sim Trooper had fucking proved it in life, and it wasn’t going to be any different in death.
But he could feel it, the way his eyes kept flickering to Wash’s hand to make sure the knife was there, was held tight, to make sure it wasn’t coming towards him in any capacity. It frustrated him, this compulsion to look when every time he dragged gaze up to the Freelancer, it would flicker back down again just to make sure. Again. Again. Again. Dammit, he was stronger than this, he was tougher than this; Wash had been hurt a million times and he wasn’t all jumpy about shit. Donut didn’t get skittish about Wash even though Wash nearly killed him. Why was it different for him? Why was he being a fucking wuss when he had survived just fine?
Because it’s everything else.
Maybe. Maybe it was as much about how he got played, about what they did to him and Chorus and all of his friends as much as it had been about that blade sinking past his suit, through his skin, into him. Maybe it was the intimacy of being that close to a sociopath, one that didn’t have an excuse like the Meta did, the one that just cared for nothing more than the billboard sized TV they wanted. Maybe it was all some symbolic crap that he didn’t give a fuck about and didn’t want to understand. Denial was a beautiful thing.
Get past this? Shit, he barely knew what “this” was.]
What’s there to know about knives? Don’t get stabbed. That’s the only fucking rule and I already know that one.
[But that’s not what Wash was talking about, was it?]
Sorry about the novel. I have lots of feelings about this...
[Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. To still be bothered by it meant that Felix still had some place in his orbit, and Tucker had blown him off a fucking tower. He had won. He had been the goddamn victor, for all of Felix’s useless posturing. That dickslit had no place in anything anymore because Tucker had made sure of it.
Felix hadn’t been faster or stronger than him. The Sim Trooper had fucking proved it in life, and it wasn’t going to be any different in death.
But he could feel it, the way his eyes kept flickering to Wash’s hand to make sure the knife was there, was held tight, to make sure it wasn’t coming towards him in any capacity. It frustrated him, this compulsion to look when every time he dragged gaze up to the Freelancer, it would flicker back down again just to make sure. Again. Again. Again. Dammit, he was stronger than this, he was tougher than this; Wash had been hurt a million times and he wasn’t all jumpy about shit. Donut didn’t get skittish about Wash even though Wash nearly killed him. Why was it different for him? Why was he being a fucking wuss when he had survived just fine?
Because it’s everything else.
Maybe. Maybe it was as much about how he got played, about what they did to him and Chorus and all of his friends as much as it had been about that blade sinking past his suit, through his skin, into him. Maybe it was the intimacy of being that close to a sociopath, one that didn’t have an excuse like the Meta did, the one that just cared for nothing more than the billboard sized TV they wanted. Maybe it was all some symbolic crap that he didn’t give a fuck about and didn’t want to understand. Denial was a beautiful thing.
Get past this? Shit, he barely knew what “this” was.]
What’s there to know about knives? Don’t get stabbed. That’s the only fucking rule and I already know that one.
[But that’s not what Wash was talking about, was it?]