more weeks of OTC
[locked from his son]
week 34.3:
"Everyone has a motto, creed, quote, etc that they live by. What's yours and why?"
Slade just shook his head when that question came, his eye both amused and dark with old memories. "Haven't I made that clear yet? Or did you miss who I really am?
"You could ask almost any of the Titans that have known me over the years, or any of the people I've taken a job from, and they'd tell you what mine is. 'My word is my bond.' Your reputation's the only thing you've got, in my business. So if I give it, I keep it."
He was silent quite a while, working a pencil over his fingers thoughtfully, and only that the man he was speaking to had already learned when to wait out one of his minor silences kept him from becoming derailed from the current thoughts.
"Which has... gotten me into more than a little trouble over the years. Conflicting oaths are pure hell, and while most people would have thought the arrogance of youth had long since been beaten out of me, I still had a generous amount of it when it profited me the least." He shrugged a shoulder slightly, phantom ache in the empty socket of his eye.
Word count: 195
Week 36.1 You made your bed. Now you can lie in it.
The ache made his hand start to twitch toward it for a moment and he mostly ignored the impulse, his too-accurate memory replaying those never-ending hours so many years ago. "So sure I could handle everything... all I got myself was the wreckage of what I'd wanted -- and I'm sure my wife would still say I more than deserved it. Probably even that I'd chosen it when I decided to keep what I was doing from her.
"No, I don't think she's wrong. I did. I knew that even then, do you really think thirty-odd years later I'd change my mind on that?" He snorted at the idea, dismissing it.
Word count: 111
week 34.3:
"Everyone has a motto, creed, quote, etc that they live by. What's yours and why?"
Slade just shook his head when that question came, his eye both amused and dark with old memories. "Haven't I made that clear yet? Or did you miss who I really am?
"You could ask almost any of the Titans that have known me over the years, or any of the people I've taken a job from, and they'd tell you what mine is. 'My word is my bond.' Your reputation's the only thing you've got, in my business. So if I give it, I keep it."
He was silent quite a while, working a pencil over his fingers thoughtfully, and only that the man he was speaking to had already learned when to wait out one of his minor silences kept him from becoming derailed from the current thoughts.
"Which has... gotten me into more than a little trouble over the years. Conflicting oaths are pure hell, and while most people would have thought the arrogance of youth had long since been beaten out of me, I still had a generous amount of it when it profited me the least." He shrugged a shoulder slightly, phantom ache in the empty socket of his eye.
Word count: 195
Week 36.1 You made your bed. Now you can lie in it.
The ache made his hand start to twitch toward it for a moment and he mostly ignored the impulse, his too-accurate memory replaying those never-ending hours so many years ago. "So sure I could handle everything... all I got myself was the wreckage of what I'd wanted -- and I'm sure my wife would still say I more than deserved it. Probably even that I'd chosen it when I decided to keep what I was doing from her.
"No, I don't think she's wrong. I did. I knew that even then, do you really think thirty-odd years later I'd change my mind on that?" He snorted at the idea, dismissing it.
Word count: 111