maskormenace | ( ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ )

[ It's dark -- mostly because it's late, but there aren't an excess of lights on, either -- though Reggie's face is faintly illuminated by the light of his communicator screen and also something off-screen that might be a TV or bedside light. Either way, he's recognizable enough, and though he's smirking faintly his expression is otherwise somewhat blank.

He's been staying out of most of the current drama as best as any survival-oriented, cowardly narcissist can, which is pretty damn well. All things considered. Basically he hasn't been leaving the house if he can avoid it, for which has his reasons. ]

So, all right. Hear me out. Anyone else ever noticed how once you're here, you have to just start believin' in everything? Like that any kinda crap is possible and you just gotta get used to it... after a while you don't even have to think about it anymore. [ Which is, you know, nice. In his opinion. ] Nice thing about that is not having to worry so much about whatever happens, I think. No matter how bad things have gotten here, it's never been the end of the world.

... Well, not yet. [ And his brow crinkles at that, but only briefly. ] Kinda makes you think, huh? Like what's the best way to take advantage of being stuck in some world that actually takes okay care of us? Don't even bother arguing with me about that part, it's true and everyone oughta know it. We get a lot of free, fake time to kill being here, so I say it should be obvious: we can do whatever we can't do back where we came from. Anyway, what I actually wanna know is--

Anyone here made a bucket list yet?

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Of course you would, you got some kinda righteous savior complex! Great for you that you're so freakin' noble and decent, I'm sure you'd have a whole mob of people that'd take a bullet for you. And why not? My neighbors would probably just think I had it coming.

[ Her eyes flash. Her shoulders hunch. There's a real anger in her face now, and so, recklessly, she snarls out - ]

Yeah, except that I didn't have anyone standing up for me, did I.

[ Which is definitely more information than she wants Reggie to have. So she clamps her jaw shut on it, and then stiffly shakes her head and spits out: ]

People caring for people is good. It's not a bad thing.

[ In someone else that might trigger an empathetic reaction, at least to an extent -- true that Reggie's own opinion rests more heavily in paranoid hypotheticals and what-ifs concerning something almost no one else knows about yet, but he can still base milder examples in experience -- but all Reggie does is square his shoulders back, glaring at her. ]

Then you oughta know better, shouldn't you? And why d'you think that was? People caring for people doesn't mean anything -- no one does anything outta pure goodness in their heart. That's crap.

If that's the case, it's only because we've all been taught to only look out for ourselves. If we were encouraged to be good, we would be. But people are cowardly because they're taught to be cowards.

[ She leans forward, getting a little bit into his personal space. ]

And what you're doing, saying that no one's good - that's only perpetuating it, isn't it! That's only reinforcing that - that cowardice, that indifference.

[ He bristles again more aggressively this time, his arm jerking upward as if to either push her back from him or to do something worse. Reggie does neither, though it balls tightly into a fist at his side.

He grinds his teeth, maintaining eye contact with her. ]

Hey, I'm not saying no one's good. There's the people going out and doing terrible things or-- or, y'know, ruining lives, but it's not like having good people around makes that go away. Even good people can look out for themselves first, ain't nothing wrong with that all the time. People have the right to want to live, and like hell would I trust that to someone else. You'd have to be freaking insane to!

You're insane not to realize that you already do that. Every day you trust other people to look out for you. You're part of an enormous system of - of people being good, of people being vigilant and working for the good of others, and if you don't realize that you're blind. And - [ She's definitely worked up now; she reaches out and grabs his wrist, holding on tight to the arm that he pushed towards her, like she's grabbing on and making him listen. ] And good people always can tamp down the amount of evil in the world. If they act, if they're active and don't just stand by, they can help people, they can make the world better. You can, I can, if we're just brave -

Don't touch me, you mouthy-- let go!

[ He's clearly worked up as well, yanking his arm backward and shoving at her with the opposite one. Blindly, but not necessarily gently, either; it's all a wild and uncontrolled reflex. ]

I don't trust any of you with my life -- not like it matters around here. What makes you believe that any of that's even a little true anyway? Where were those people when you said you needed them? When they weren't standing up for you? Had better things to do, right? Cheerleading the spirit of goodness and bravery all the time ain't gonna make people care about you.

[ That lands. Hard. Harder than Kitty herself would have thought possible. It feels like a slap in the face, a blow to the stomach. It feels, stupidly, like that day those years ago when her indifferent parents handed her over to be arrested. She stares at him a moment, for once actually stunned to silence - for once in her life, without any comeback, not even swallowing her words but completely without words.

So what comes next is pretty predictable. She stares for a heartbeat, two - and then raises her fist and slams it into Reggie's jaw. Hard. Really, really hard, so hard that as soon as she follows through on the punch she cries out in pain - ]

Fuck!

[ And then swings around, storming a few steps away from him, not even looking back to see if he's doing okay. ]

[ The pain isn't even felt in his jaw at first so much as it is the entire rest of his head, her fist awakening what feels like every single sensory nerve in reaction to the way his jaw grinds and shifts with the strike. He takes it about as well as he took the other strikes, with a loud but brief yell of pain and then quieter groans that he cuts off with quickly because they vibrate through his jaw in a maddening way. It feels broken or at least dislocated, though he doesn't think it is; he's been hit in the head enough times by now to know which injuries hurt worse than the actual damage done. But it'll bruise and it'll swell, that much is for certain.

He catches his breath, cupping his jaw with both hands and spitting out some blood from his bitten tongue. Also going to swell. It's easy for him to assess this sort of damage, though -- less so regarding what's going on with Kitty. ]

Truth hurts, huh?

[ The words are lisped, spoken as clearly as he's able to manage considering the state of his jaw. ]

[ She tries to find some comeback. Something good, something devastating, something that'll make him...collapse miserably and cry and apologize...She's got absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. All she can do is grind her jaw and search for words, but all she can find is: ]

Piss off.

[ And then she forces herself forward again, and she marches stiffly away from him, back home. ]

[ And that's that, it seems. Reggie isn't incapable of feeling anything, watching her walk away like that -- it's not as strong as "guilt," per se, nor shame, but he isn't proud of himself either the way he usually can be after pushing a reaction out of someone.

But she got to him, too, and he wasn't about to give her an opportunity to dig deeper, or to realize which nerves of his were closer to the skin than others. Glowering after her, he watches her back for a few moments before he turns back toward home as well, sulking rather than gloating. ]

( ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ )

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