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[intheblanks]

The third day after I got here I walked into a clinic on the edge of the underground and got a job from a guy with a skin condition - don't know the clinical name, we'll call it green scales - who told me he heals with the laying on of hands. Since then, I've found out he only lays on his hands in exchange for a fragment of your soul, which suited

Comments

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[adamantined]

[Someone else has been absent the Network for a good chunk of time, though whether Claire has been working in seedy Underground clinics is debatable. She doesn't say anything right away, and there's a stretch of silence in which she contemplates not saying anything at all, but she's always had impulse control problems.]

You're an ass.

[He apparently already knows, but it bears repeating.]

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[intheblanks]

I take it you know me.

[There isn't much recognition in return. He had been drunk last time, after all, and it was forty days ago.]

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[adamantined]

[Bad impulse control problems. Mistakes. She moves the communicator away from her mouth so as not to say 'biblically.']

It doesn't really matter. I could just be commenting on how you obviously kept a bunch of people waiting to hear from you and spent all that time doing something stupid like patching up things that could eat you if the needle prick hurts too much.

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[intheblanks]

You could be, but you sound bloody defensive about it if you are.

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[adamantined]

Maybe I'm just really invested. It's not like you know me enough to say otherwise.

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[intheblanks]

I'm sorry, I really don't.

[There is a genuine apology there. How many people is he going to have to go through this with?]

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[adamantined]

Whatever.

[Going off the tone of her voice, it's not as casual a dismissal as she'd like it to be. It hurts down deep, possibly more than it did a month ago.]

What do you remember? Other than the better points of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

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[intheblanks]

I don't know if remember is the right word. I'm told I've been here before, but it may as well have been someone else.

[Not strictly true, but the fuzzy recollections bother them and it's easier to pretend they're not there at all.]

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[adamantined]

That's all I really need to go off of, then.

[And because she can't disengage as immediately as she'd like to -]

Get out of the Underground and stay out. You're going to get yourself killed.

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[intheblanks]

I'm working on it.

[Whether she's able to disconnect with any immediacy, he can hear she's making the attempt.]

Wait. We were friends?

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[adamantined]

Make your legs work harder. It can't be that difficult.

[She's aware she's acting like a bitch, but she can't seem to disengage from that either. Really, it would be easy to just hang up and leave him hanging the way he left all of them - her - wondering. Her fingers hover over and tap on the button that could end the conversation.]

I've got your cat.

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[intheblanks]

My-

[Funny, he'd almost gotten attached to the one Cameron left with, but still.]

Did you buy it for me, too?

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[adamantined]

You bought it for my uncle, actually.

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[intheblanks]

Then why is it mine now?

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[adamantined]

Because he left. And then you left. And I don't want it anymore.

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[intheblanks]

[Bear with him, Claire, he's still trying to figure out why you're so intense.]

Are you mad at me for ditching the cat?