FIC: Reflection (Westworld [HBO], Ford/Arnold)
A small new fic, written for slashthedrabble prompt #429: "Déjà Vu" (a prompt tailor-made for this fandom if there ever was one).
Title: Reflection
Fandom: Westworld (HBO)
Pairing: Robert Ford/Arnold Weber
Rating: PG
Word count: 400
Notes: This stands alone, but is planned to be part of a linked series of short-short fics. Also, it will not make any sense unless you have watched all of the first season of Westworld. I'm serious. Turn back now if you haven't watched this show and you aren't into being both spoiled and confused.
Comments welcome here or on AO3.
---
"You had a partner?"
Ford looked out the glass door, his reflection superimposed on the canyon's red rocks in twilight. "Scratch any legend of the sole visionary, Bernard, to find unchronicled years of collaboration without which the story never begins. The case of our work here is a...particularly stark example."
"-If you don't mind my asking..."
"He took his own life. In the park. We swept it under the rug, like so much-broken loop."
"I'm sorry," Bernard said. He knew how inadequate it was, from his own experience with the kind of loss that left everyone without words, but from that experience also knew that trying to offer consolation was only an exercise in making things worse.
"What was he like?"
Ford considered the question, carefully, his gaze to one side.
"Unsettled," he said at last. "Arnold's life was marked by pain and loss. And no matter what horizons he found to explore-and a mind like his never lacked for new pursuits-sooner or later, the darkness would return. Eclipse that light of discovery in his eyes again."
Bernard had never heard anything so personal from his employer. It made his chest tight.
"Here in the park," Ford said, "we had a world of our own. From discovery to creation. But in the end, all of that-wasn't enough to keep him tethered to life."
Beneath the surface of Ford's words, Bernard could easily hear the even more heartbreaking coda: I wasn't enough.
"There's an insight here," Ford said after a silence. "All I see and hear becomes grist for the mill. The most intimate pains of others, all varieties of struggle and suffering, find their way into the characters in my park. But the loss that defines my own life remains firmly cordoned off from the narrative.
"Do I do a disservice in that omission? To others, to myself? To the one I loved?"
Bernard couldn't imagine what to say.
Ford put a hand on his shoulder. "Well. That's enough. We must look back, and smile at perils past."
Bernard blinked down at his tablet. They'd covered the proposed new Hector build and some animal behavior updates. A short but helpful meeting.
"This has been most productive, Bernard. Anything else for us today?"
"No, sir," Bernard said after a quick double-check. Maybe he'd try to call Lauren later. For some reason, he felt sad tonight.
-end-
Title: Reflection
Fandom: Westworld (HBO)
Pairing: Robert Ford/Arnold Weber
Rating: PG
Word count: 400
Notes: This stands alone, but is planned to be part of a linked series of short-short fics. Also, it will not make any sense unless you have watched all of the first season of Westworld. I'm serious. Turn back now if you haven't watched this show and you aren't into being both spoiled and confused.
Comments welcome here or on AO3.
---
"You had a partner?"
Ford looked out the glass door, his reflection superimposed on the canyon's red rocks in twilight. "Scratch any legend of the sole visionary, Bernard, to find unchronicled years of collaboration without which the story never begins. The case of our work here is a...particularly stark example."
"-If you don't mind my asking..."
"He took his own life. In the park. We swept it under the rug, like so much-broken loop."
"I'm sorry," Bernard said. He knew how inadequate it was, from his own experience with the kind of loss that left everyone without words, but from that experience also knew that trying to offer consolation was only an exercise in making things worse.
"What was he like?"
Ford considered the question, carefully, his gaze to one side.
"Unsettled," he said at last. "Arnold's life was marked by pain and loss. And no matter what horizons he found to explore-and a mind like his never lacked for new pursuits-sooner or later, the darkness would return. Eclipse that light of discovery in his eyes again."
Bernard had never heard anything so personal from his employer. It made his chest tight.
"Here in the park," Ford said, "we had a world of our own. From discovery to creation. But in the end, all of that-wasn't enough to keep him tethered to life."
Beneath the surface of Ford's words, Bernard could easily hear the even more heartbreaking coda: I wasn't enough.
"There's an insight here," Ford said after a silence. "All I see and hear becomes grist for the mill. The most intimate pains of others, all varieties of struggle and suffering, find their way into the characters in my park. But the loss that defines my own life remains firmly cordoned off from the narrative.
"Do I do a disservice in that omission? To others, to myself? To the one I loved?"
Bernard couldn't imagine what to say.
Ford put a hand on his shoulder. "Well. That's enough. We must look back, and smile at perils past."
Bernard blinked down at his tablet. They'd covered the proposed new Hector build and some animal behavior updates. A short but helpful meeting.
"This has been most productive, Bernard. Anything else for us today?"
"No, sir," Bernard said after a quick double-check. Maybe he'd try to call Lauren later. For some reason, he felt sad tonight.
-end-