Counselor Aiden Price (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
myagents) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wildestlogs2021-11-05 10:45 pm
myagents) wrote in wildestlogs2021-11-05 10:45 pm
Entry tags:
"I figured you cherished this ring so I took it"
Who: Bunny and Price
What: Dan's lost ring is generously given back
Where: In the team's current gathering spot
When: the morning after the Nigthrenders attack
Warnings/Notes: implied toxic dynamics
[Eventually, with a bit of twisting, the ring did come off. It's honestly beyond him how easily Dan was going to get rid of it, these things are important. Last night's interactions didn't help Price ease the mixed feelings he has towards their complicated friendship. He likes having this ring with him and using it, it gives him some sense of power that makes him look good by technically doing a nice thing worthy of praise by retrieving it while doing it to hurt the feelings of those involved in the process at the same time.
Besides, Dan's way of being nice to him secretly makes him feel like crap most of the time, so he gets to punish him by complicating the situation, if only for a few minutes.]
Um...Excuse me, could I speak to you for a second?
[He approaches Bunny, with an innocent look on his face, making himself small.]
Daniel was going to exchange his wedding ring for weapons during the faire. I...I didn't want this to go lost, I figured you cherished this ring so I took it. I wanted to give it back to him, but we were attacked and I forgot about it.
[He hands the ring to Bunny.]
Hopefully it's fine if I give it back to you.
What: Dan's lost ring is generously given back
Where: In the team's current gathering spot
When: the morning after the Nigthrenders attack
Warnings/Notes: implied toxic dynamics
[Eventually, with a bit of twisting, the ring did come off. It's honestly beyond him how easily Dan was going to get rid of it, these things are important. Last night's interactions didn't help Price ease the mixed feelings he has towards their complicated friendship. He likes having this ring with him and using it, it gives him some sense of power that makes him look good by technically doing a nice thing worthy of praise by retrieving it while doing it to hurt the feelings of those involved in the process at the same time.
Besides, Dan's way of being nice to him secretly makes him feel like crap most of the time, so he gets to punish him by complicating the situation, if only for a few minutes.]
Um...Excuse me, could I speak to you for a second?
[He approaches Bunny, with an innocent look on his face, making himself small.]
Daniel was going to exchange his wedding ring for weapons during the faire. I...I didn't want this to go lost, I figured you cherished this ring so I took it. I wanted to give it back to him, but we were attacked and I forgot about it.
[He hands the ring to Bunny.]
Hopefully it's fine if I give it back to you.
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But this is a kind gesture, so Bunny takes a breath and smiles as he holds out his paw for the ring. His own dangles from a chain around his neck.]
That's kind of you. Thanks, mate. I'll let him know you returned it.
[it doesn't bother him that Dan was panning the ring for weapons - that's a practical choice for their situation, and rings were never a part of his culture, less so even than marriage at all, but it does paint an incomplete picture.]
What, did you lend him the money to buy things instead?
[he fully knows the actual answer is theft. But Price gets so little of people expecting anything better than the worst from him. Maybe some kinder assumptions will do him good.]
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[He shrugs. Was that supposed to be a trick question? He won't let his guard down.]
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[And this is where the exchange begins to lean towards awkward, because as far as Bunny's concerned, 'here's your husband's ring' 'hey thanks for giving it back' is a full conversation, but Price is still here, body language screaming 'heyyy I'm just a little guy,' when Bunny hardly thinks of himself as someone for anyone to make themselves small around. He undoes the chain on his neck, threading Dan's ring onto it beside his own.]
Hang on.
[One good turn deserves another. Price may not have received a lot of positive reinforcement for good deeds, and it's not like this is going to keep forever, when it's all he'll have of the stuff for a much longer time than on the Rig. Bunny unslings his holsters and reaches in for the small knife he picked up at the fair and a few leaf-wrapped chocolate eggs, all set to pare off a slice.]
Dark or milk? You're gonna have to make a piece last. I can't make it as fast here as I could on the Rig.
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Why are you giving me this?
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What did you think I was gonna give you? [He tries to play it off as a joke.] You know who I am. I got one thing I'm well known for giving out. So, milk, or dark?
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I prefer dark.
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Like I said, make it last. I can't make it as fast here.
[possibly at all, if they end up being perpetually on the move, but that's not a problem he cares to angst about with Price.]
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[He takes the chocolate and looks down at it.]
You and Daniel make a good couple, by the way. Thanks for protecting him.
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[The compliment seems genuinely given, which almost surprises Bunny at this point, though he can't say why. Price's body language is just so tense, like he approached this interaction expecting to be lashed out at. But he approached it anyway, when surely giving the ring back to Dan would have been a more comfortable route, if he is uncomfortable with Bunny.
He just nods, sagely. He'd say Dan can take care of himself, but though Dan can, he often doesn't, and that's been the source of most of their arguments.
Not that he's going to tell Price that, either.]
I do what I can.
['And I'm good at what I do' is unnecessary to add on, but it comes through in his tone.]
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[He pauses.]
He said that those monsters make people relive their worst memories. He said they didn't do it to him, but...I don't believe him.
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[Bunny is sitting on absolute certainty that Dan lied to Price. He's sitting on that certainty because he felt the way Dan clung last night, talked it out of him, confirmed positively that of course Dan got sucked back in to some of his worst memories.
But that's his privilege, that insight into when Dan does and does not fudge the truth to avoid talking about it. And it's his experience with how hard Dan will avoid anything that is hard to talk about, or unpleasant to talk about, how much he'll repress if the alternative is talking about terrible things that, even undone, can never be undone in his mind.
And it's certainly not his impulse to call his husband a liar to anyone else's face. Much less Price's.]
Why wouldn't he tell you, if he did?
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[It's completely true, and he's aware of it, but that doesn't mean he will withdraw the condescension from his tone.]
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If you say so.
[Except there's no 'if' about it. Bunny didn't want to judge Price harshly for what he saw in Price's memories, particularly not when the Price in them was a child in a system designed to let kids like him fall through the cracks as quickly as possible. Bunny was sympathetic to that kid, angry that his world failed to be able to gently temper him, resolved to learn more about how to prevent kids born in Prices situation - whatever the details of it were - from becoming the adult Price, by reputation is.
But sympathy doesn't eclipse survival instinct, and his survival instinct tells him that being on Price's radar is, at best, a surefire chance of being manipulated. He'd be quietly out of Price's mind entirely if he could.
But Dan has made other decisions. And one of the aspects of a relationship is, inherently, being affected by the people his significant other chooses to get entangled with.]
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[It's true. He cares about Dan, in the only way he is capable of, but he does. It's not his fault that people have to be broken to even think of getting near him. He is just doing all he can with the tools he has, and right now Dan is all can achieve...Although even that is an empty achievement because if there was anyone else in his place Dan would have done the same, because he's after the pain, not him.
The interesting thing about the two of them together is how they are polar opposites in the way they manipulate people: Dan shows physical vulnerability and availability, is genuinely empathetic, only to make you hit a wall once you try to go deeper within him, and after he's found his relief he just leaves because he refuses to commit; Price instead shows himself as blank as he can, formal, boring, playing the part so much that he morphs into what you need - and maybe he does it to tear you into tiny little pieces, but he's committed. It's his love language.
When you break free of Price is because you realize what his true colours are. When you break free of Dan? You don't, he simply left you first, and his true colours are still there, still beautiful but you were never part of the conversation. Even worse, you have to be thankful that that liar bothered to give you a kindness that you would have never known otherwise, even if it wasn't really for you to begin with.]
And I know that I can't convince you in any way that you shouldn't take him away from me...But please don't.
[He hates begging, but he likes to fool people, so he is going to 'pretend' that he's desperate. It's not like their entire friendship isn't a lie, anyway.]
Please don't take away my only friend.
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[Bunny has a little chuckle over that, over how true it is, how good Dan is at caring even at his own expense, when caring means danger, when caring means a harpy will open him up from elbow to wrist and his response won't be to deal a blow back, but to go on patiently caring. Caring that openly invites care in return. Even from someone like Price. That's wholly believable.
His fond smile drops into a raised eyebrow as Price goes on.]
Is that what this is about?
[all the cagey submissive prey-animal body language, like Bunny's a threat and not just someone to return a lost item to, makes sense in that context.]
Mate, I don't make Dan's decisions for him.
[Dan might argue that's not entirely true. Bunny is a steamroller. But he's made decisions Dan's been opposed to all in the name of keeping Dan alive, and - and that's different from telling him who to and not to be friends with, even when those friends are dangerous people.
Anyway, he's not going to get into what he and Dan fight about with Price. Or anyone, really.]
I don't make his friends for him, either. Or unmake them.
[he adds it more than a little astonished to be accused of being that controlling. More than a little astonished that Price believes - if he does believe it - that Dan would stay in any relationship that controlling.]
What, would you try and convince him not to keep his friends if you thought you could?
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[Bunny is a threat. Maybe it's not that likely, but it can happen that he talks some sense into Dan, that Dan heals and becomes better, and what is going to happen then? Who will take care of Price, if only because they are too foolish, when everyone else would rather see him dead? He clenches his fists, the piece of chocolate turns into a few crumbles and mostly stains on his palm.]
Despite the fact that you hate me, this is not personal, not for me. Please don't make this harder than it needs to be.
[He realizes how empty his own threat is, it's so powerless. He hates it, and that humiliation alone activates that mechanism within him, the one that turns any negativity into fuel to go straight for the kill.]
Either way, you are the immortal being, not me. You are the one who is going to have to watch him die, one day.
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Well at least you're honest. [About one thing.
But his half-smirk turns into a full glare of disbelief as he locks eyes on Price crushing and ruining his chocolate, the fragment of the stash he had to pare out carefully to kids who need a little comfort and energy and the occasional adult who needs the same, wasted on someone too determined to hurt to accept comfort with no strings.
He lets Price finish his thought, a moment of silence stretching as he thinks of all the times he's let a little disagreement slip because some day Dan will die and that has been a thought that holds his temper, keeps him present, guides him to treasure every moment he gets Dan's company knowing he won't get it one day, but always, always on his mind. Whether as a centering mantra or a dreadful inevitably.
He lifts his glare from staring at Price's hand to looking him in the eye.] I don't hate you, but you waste one of my gifts like that again and I might get to feeling some strong dislike.
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Bunny might be some sort of omnipotent creature with powers and alleged wisdom, but he's such an adult man when it comes to this, in the worst way. He even has the pretense to regard himself as someone who protects children, too. There's some resurfacing boiling disgust that comes with witnessing that.]
You really think your chocolate is good for something, don't you? Well then.
[He just straight up throws what's left at Bunny.]
You can have it back!
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He doesn't know why Dan enjoys being kind to Price enough not to run hard away from being clung to by him. It's not his job to understand. It's not his job to make Price better. He'll settle for not making Price worse.]
Y'know, I think we've had a full conversation at this point. I'm gonna go keep foraging if you're done.
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[He turns around, starting to walk away.]
Nevermind.
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[Bunny doesn't turn his back on Price. He doesn't trust Price like that. He turns his side instead, crouching down to keep going through the underbrush for edible roots, but watching Price out of the corner of his eye in case he changes his mind about leaving and opts to do something more aggressive.]
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[Bunny is just humiliating him on purpose, isn't he? Begging him wasn't easy and he downright mocked him pretending he doesn't know what this is about, but he knows, and Price knows how he acts. He can perfectly see him gaslight Dan into doing something, perhaps because he himself cannot fathom 'good intentions' coming from something other than prey. It's why Dan deserves everything that is coming to him, anyway.]
That is not what you're doing.
[He walks away angrily.]
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By the way the fur on the back of his neck is still standing up, he quite doubts it. He doesn't let his side-glance leave Price until the man is well out of seeing range, and doesn't turn his ear away from listening after his departure until longer after he's out of hearing range.]