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[kobes]

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koby



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[kobes]

Ah, I'm familiar. She feels a little like you.

Oh.
Well.
It'd depend on the context.
I don't bite people unprompted.

[snaggleteeth]

I thought the context was sexting and what follows, but now I'm intrigued. What else?

[kobes]

Oftentimes what follows sexting is "oops, wrong person, sorry, Koby" and then I go to bed.
But sometimes it's what follows, I guess.
Is that



What you want? From me?

[snaggleteeth]

I don't know, Koby. I'm not sure if you'd bite me. Then what good would that be?

[he'd object to the comparison to tara, but it reads as a compliment, really.]

[kobes]

You think I can't? Or wouldn't?

Maybe you should come close again and see what happens.

[snaggleteeth]

I think a lot of things. I'm interested in being proven wrong.

What would you feel? The drive behind your teeth? Desire alone?

Do you know?

[kobes]

[a thoughtful pause, a flicker of that sunset-pink something flaring bright on the ambient landscape of unseen power.]

I think that and
To show I was there.
That I was real, at the same time as you.

[snaggleteeth]

[is that bar low? he's not sure. one supposes one has to be real before one can be angry.

he finds he likes the answer anyway.]

Do you ever feel powerful when you fuck?

Or when you don't.

[kobes]

[there's another pause.]

It might be the only time I feel that way. I feel
Right. Like there's nothing wrong.

1/2

[snaggleteeth]

Has it ever occurred to you that the bar should be a little higher than 'there's nothing wrong?'

'Right' is something else. For most people. But you should think how you want to think.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

How many people have you killed?

[this does not occur to him as a non-sequitur!]

[kobes]

Not really. "Wrong" has been my default state for a very long time, so feeling like I'm okay is a bigger deal than it may be to others. That's all.
Sometimes "right" is how it is, but. It depends.

Oh.
Physically? None.
By association? A few hundred.

[snaggleteeth]

I can see that.

A few hundred dead is a lot. Probably better, they aren't yours to regret.

What does 'it' depend on? Whatever makes something right?

[kobes]

I guess that's a matter of perspective. I did nothing to intervene, so they're on my conscience, the same as if I'd killed them with my own hands.

It's complicated. The way I am now isn't the way I was born. Feeling "right" took a long, long time.

[snaggleteeth]

Do you want to talk about this here, somewhere else, or not at all?

[it's an important word: want.]

[kobes]

Oh. Um
I don't know. It's
Well, you've been inside my head. I'm sure you'll find most of it out anyway, eventually.

[not an answer.]

[snaggleteeth]

Pick one.

[he's more congenial sometimes than others.]

[kobes]

You're VERY bossy, has anyone ever told you that?

I want you to understand, so. Yes.

1/2

[snaggleteeth]

[that would, in fact, be a way he and tara carpenter are similar.

somewhere in the mansion, the stranger is smiling.]

Not sure I'm 'bossy' enough, considering that wasn't one of the three choices.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

I can come find you, now. Or later.

Whatever you want.

[kobes]

For what?

[he's assuming it's some sort of training exercise.]

[snaggleteeth]

[it's not not a training exercise.]

For speaking the ocean.

Maybe bite like it too. Some point.

[kobes]

Oh.

Well. I wouldn't mind either. Come find me.

But tell me how you do it. How you find people. Is it the same as me?

[snaggleteeth]

You're better at it than I am. More precise, longer range. Probably also adapted to whatever's off about the energy in this place.

I just happen to like walking.

[kobes]

You're being modest, which is weird.

[but -- koby does reach out, slipping through the signatures of energy that signify each guest, like sliding his fingers through sand, until he comes up holding the dark-red, shifting one that means the stranger. that unseen nudge nudge.]

Found you.