{ scene } i wonder how you'd be if someone were to call you on it
The strange adjustment coming off assignment is one constant in James's life- there are more of those than you'd think, although it'd be a challenge to get him to name many of them. Ordinarily he spends it loafing around his London haunts or pretending the flat doesn't feel like a cage, but when he signs himself (somewhat painfully) out of the ( Read more... )
Calling Pela is in and of itself something of a gamble; there is no guarantee she'll have her pinpoint with her, and even less of one she'll answer it. Generally she does mind it, since James is considerably more interested in the use of technology than she is, but she is headstrong. Still, her appearance today is mostly (...arguably) fortuitous; she was bored, reuniting with her countrymen under the sea is rather hit-or-miss in terms of acceptance, despite all she's done for them, and she goes where she likes. Even if there are whispers about her close involvement with land-walkers and worse, humans, she is considered a hero, and few people will question her openly.
Certainly none of the men.
He might be more keenly attuned the flash of her tail in the water by now, but he still receives very little warning before she comes slicing through the top and regards him calmly, silent.
He is injured. And morose-looking.
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"Mmm. Do they know you are with me? Or simply that you are 'away'?" Pelagia keeps one hand on him, in her casually, absently affectionate fashion. She has missed him, to be truthful, but they show it in their own particular way. (The Mer at home don't understand her attachment, and she always says 'you'd see if you met him.')
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"I don't discuss my personal life with my colleagues," he says, which means they have no idea he's with her and most of them probably don't even know for sure he's seeing someone regularly; Goodnight suspects, but only because Goodnight's close enough to him to actually be able to sometimes keep track of his hookups. His habits have changed, recently, and some people notice. Whether or not he answers the inevitable questions is another story. "Kissy has to file paperwork on our son every year-" it's interesting that James doesn't feel the need to use more distancing terminology, that the distance is simply there, "-so I think they can make do with what they already know."
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She lifts one hand as if going 'wait, wait', processing this with a deep frown.
"You have a ne--a child?" Not a nereid, no, Pela, that would be extremely confusing for all involved. "Why did you not tell me this before? Where is he? James."
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Bypassing 'why didn't you tell me' for the simple reason that he's not sure that the assorted reasons he could pick from won't just start a fight he's in no shape to have with her, he settles on the easier questions. 'You have a child?' at least strikes him as rhetorical.
"He's with his mother." The barely there implication that James has not actually ever met his son is...not inaccurate.
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She's silent for a while, leaning away from him after a moment; some space will help her think this over.
"Your life is dangerous," she begins, slowly, "it is better for him to be where he cannot be used against you. Isn't it?"
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A silence passes, and while he wouldn't say that he makes this next admission because he loves Pela and she deserves so much better than he is capable of giving anyone, it is why he doesn't just agree and leave it there. "I didn't know about him until a year or two later. Brainwashing, electroshock therapy and my commander setting me up to earn my job back or die conveniently, again; I was busy."
It was, all told, a fairly hideous period of his life, but the point he is not exactly making is that there was a certain amount of distance for him when he made that decision. His son remains an abstract; he pays child support but there's no reality of fatherhood in his life. It's not quite the same, to him, as making a sacrifice.
(But maybe it is.)
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Human fathers have the option to be so much less involved with the raising of their offspring than Mermen; among Pela's people, that's simply not done, not in such a strong matriarchy.
But she understands that he does not attach easily. The vulnerability involved in caring for a child--it's regret for the loss of that ability, maybe, but he never attached enough to mourn that relationship. It's another kind of sadness Pela feels for him, then.
"I understand."
And she does.
"Do you think you will ever see him?"
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"No," he says, glancing at her. "Not unless something happens to Kissy and I have to make arrangements for him." He did promise, but he's sincerely hoping he won't ever have to keep it. Either way, 'arrangements' would almost certainly not involve raising James Jr himself.
"It's probably better that way," he notes, wry about it but more bluntly honest than self-deprecating. "I hate to think of myself parenting." At least he's realistic.
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"Your lifestyle isn't very conducive to it. His mother is good to him?" She's sure James can make an educated guess even if he's never seen the woman parent.
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The look in his eyes is- not soft, precisely, but he's remembering a time when he didn't remember a lot, and in retrospect it was a kind respite considering everything else in that period. "I'm sure she is. Sneaky little thing, now that I know it all, but her heart was always more or less in the right place."
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