session 13 . video

[chaotica]

[ Here is Cambridge, seated at his desk, if the word 'seated' includes sprawled with feet up and uniform jacket open, revealing blue turtleneck underneath. He looks very comfortable. He may also have a glass of Scotch. ]

I'd like to conduct a survey. Call it personal patient satisfaction, if you think it's annoying.

Ready?

Now: Pick three adjectives to describe me. Support your choices with evidence and/or reasoning.

Thank you very much.

[ Cheers. He takes an apparently very satisfying sip of Scotch, letting out a little ah after. ]

Comments

[chaotica]

Both helpful and unhelpful. I am decidedly not perfect.

[fireincarnate]

No one is. ...No one has to be, I don't think.

Are there things you want to improve?

[chaotica]

Not really. I don't strive for perfection.

[fireincarnate]

Good. ...Do you know any good ways to stop people from doing that?

[chaotica]

I know quite a lot of mediocre ways.

[fireincarnate]

[Dryest smile.] I like that you're honest.

[chaotica]

Everyone is different, cliche as it sounds. Methods must vary. But if someone is bound and determined to punish herself for a lack of perfection, no one can stop her.

[fireincarnate]

...I wasn't talking about - [Oh.

She has to laugh, a little.] Okay. Point taken.

[Private]

But I meant - my boyfriend, back home.

private

[chaotica]

Tell me about him.

private

[fireincarnate]

[She smiles, and she actually looks young.]

I've known him since he was sixteen. Fell for him in about five minutes. [She shakes her head, rueful humour lighting her eyes.] So did he. It took us years to do anything.

Scott was the team's leader. He figured that meant it was all he could be. And on top of that - his power is...difficult.

private

[chaotica]

Difficult to control?

Re: private

[fireincarnate]

More like impossible. [The smile has faded, now.] He was - in an accident, as a kid, before they were active. Nasty knock on the head.

His power - it's force blasts, emanating from his eyes. And they never turn off. He's got special glasses, and a visor in the field, but...

private

[chaotica]

So the most important and most destructive force in his life is one he can't control at all, and you'd like to find a way to make him stop enforcing perfection on everything else?

Good bloody luck.