21:16 <Crion> How well does Stewart imagine things are going, at home? 21:16 <Crion> The lights are off in the main rooms when he enters; the kitchen light over the counter is on, and Chup is curled up there, studying the door. He looks up at Stewart, then away. There's lights coming from under the closed door of his and Lauren's bedroom, where she's moved her computer. 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't imagine it at all, really. 21:18 <Crion> Mmmm. 21:19 <Crion> Well, the lights stop moving for a second as he closes the front door, but no one calls out to greet him. Shortly, they resume. 21:19 <VoxPVoxD> Is she audibly on the phone? If not, Stewart calls, "I got food," as he turns the light on in the kitchen. 21:20 <VoxPVoxD> He sets a pizza down on the table. 21:21 <Crion> She's not. There will be another pause, then Lauren will shuffle out. "Hi," she says. "Pizza. Nice." 21:24 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's pulling plates down when she walks out. When he turns to see her, he stares for just a moment before his face falters. "Babe?" 21:24 <Crion> What kind of pizza is it? 21:25 <VoxPVoxD> Whatever the default is. Sausage and mushroom? Stewart's not picky. 21:26 <Crion> She sits down on the couch. "Yeah?" 21:26 <VoxPVoxD> Softly: "What happened?" 21:29 <Crion> She looks at him for a second, her eyes tighten a little bit, and she looks away. "Bad day."{ 21:30 <Crion> "So how's everyone at the Wherehouse." She'll go collect Chup from creeping up on the pizza. 21:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Don't-wanna-talk-about-it bad?" 21:32 <Crion> "Yeah," softly. "How much do I owe you for the pizza?" 21:32 <Crion> It's been awhile since she asked something like that about meals they eat together. 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "You don't-- it's just a pizza. I got us a pizza." 21:34 <Crion> "Okay." She'll get some garlic and red pepper flakes out from the cupboard for her slices, and will do up Stewart's the way he likes them (or leave them plain if that's the way). 21:34 <Crion> "Don't worry about me. It's just something I had to get out of my system." 21:36 <Crion> An annoyed 'muow' from the sofa as Chup watches food that is rightfully his (as all food is) get distributed to the less deserving (every other living creature). 21:36 <VoxPVoxD> Garlic and red pepper is classic. "...alright." Where's she eating? 21:37 <Crion> Standing at the counter, probably. If there's a kitchen table, she'll eat there. It occurs that it's been quite awhile since they snuggled up on the couch together. 21:37 <Crion> Life gets in the way, huh. 21:38 <Crion> But then that's at least as much on her as on Stewart. Work's been a killer lately. 21:39 <VoxPVoxD> And it's been a lot of late nights with the stakeouts and stuff. Sometimes it happens, right? 21:39 <Crion> Right. Carefully: "How's Rose?" 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> Their kitchen isn't big enough to have a table in the middle of the room, so it's one of those corner-and-two-chairs setups. So right now, at least, they're shoulder to shoulder. "She's doing alright. We just wrapped up the Task Force thing the other night. Damian and Nicky wrote a letter of apology to the Court and they're probably halfway to Denver by now." 21:43 <Crion> "Good. That's good. ...Have you decided which one of you is going to be Lord Sage? Or, I don't know. Has Santander?" 21:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm convinced there's a way to split the title. I just gotta figure out how. She basically tolerates me now, even. What about you, how's work been?" 21:46 <Crion> "You know. The usual. Support for Angelfire. Special projects. Boring stuff." 21:47 <VoxPVoxD> "How's the superfetch coming along?" 21:53 <Crion> "Fine," she says, then seems to realize he's going to want more than that. "We've managed to spoof an entire virtual network environment on it while maintaining quarantine, but we still need to custom-code and test some really beefy firewall and security protocols, more or less from scratch." 21:53 <Crion> "It's a work in progress." 21:58 <Crion> She picks at her second slice. 21:59 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "A lot of progress, though. It wasn't even six months ago that the whole concept was just theory." Stewart's face flickers as he says that, and another momentary pause sees him sit back from his one-and-a-half uneaten slices. The silence would be awkward between strangers. 22:00 <Crion> She tenses a bit, like she's expecting something -- maybe even anticipating something? Yeah, definitely, but what could-- 22:01 <Crion> Oh. She's expecting to get dumped. 22:06 <VoxPVoxD> This has always been an area of comparative insensitivity for Stewart. In the little dating he worked up the nerve to do before he got taken, getting dumped blindsided him pretty much the same way someone showing interest in him in the first place did. He's never known the dread he sees squeezing Lauren now. 22:10 <Crion> She puts the slice of pizza down and slides the plate gently away. 22:12 <VoxPVoxD> But he does know dread. Words muster in his throat to charge and die at his lips. He's getting angry, visibly angry, because every first thing he thinks to say will sound like exactly the wrong thing to say right now. And then he gets angrier, because so does sitting here not saying anything. 22:13 <VoxPVoxD> Finally, as the entire language mounts its suicidal last stand, Stewart is left with his most trusted lieutenants: "What have I done wrong?" 22:15 <Crion> Lauren exhales a breath she didn't realize she was holding; it rattles a bit, and she slumps. "Nothing." 22:15 <Crion> "But it doesn't feel like you love me anymore." 22:17 <Crion> "And if that's true...I'd want you to tell me...instead of leaving it up to me to..." She trails off. 22:19 <VoxPVoxD> There's hurt and real worry in Stewart's expression, but it could still best be described as caginess. 22:21 <Crion> Lauren stiffens as -- 22:21 <Crion> Lauren Ipsum -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnf7Weh7pRU Haul me up the hillside; hold me high and let me go. 22:22 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart, by contrast, relaxes. A bit. 22:26 <Crion> "Did you hear what you wanted?" 22:28 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to-- I do love you." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> "But I guess, if I didn't... it would look like this." 22:33 <Crion> Now she turns to look at him, and stares at him for a few moments. She seems like she wants to rush to him and embrace him, but instead...reaches out, and covers one of his hands with hers. "I believe you." 22:33 <Crion> "What's happened? What's...changed?" 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart concentrates deeply, playing out lines of argument in his mind. Every moment or two he very subtly shakes his head. If this is what he's done to Lauren, or what he appears to have done to Lauren, then his hand is forced. If this is the end, it's the end. What Lauren gets after nearly a full minute of intense silence is "....um," 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Or more fully, "...um, have you read any of the reports Rose and I have been submitting through Ravens on the Task Force stuff?" 22:48 <Crion> "...Yes." 22:53 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Okay. So you know the kids were kidnapped and experimented on. And you know that they were being monitored, across the entire country, by this... by what the agent I interviewed called the 'God-Machine'." 22:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart is watching Lauren's reactions very carefully. 22:54 <Crion> She nods, not interrupting. Lauren's taking this very seriously. 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> "And this God-Machine is not strictly physical. It has a supernatural character, enormous energy, folding time and space, being embedded in and emergent of infrastructure. Its action are individually legible, but its overall plan is either impossible to parse, or, or nonexistent, right? A God that wants something we can't fathom, or else everything is wormed through with this stochastic mania 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> that never stops consuming and is impossible to satisfy." 22:58 <Crion> She nods. Has he ever told her about his keeper? 22:58 <Crion> In detail. 22:58 <VoxPVoxD> Has she ever asked? 22:58 <Crion> No. 22:58 <VoxPVoxD> Then no. 22:59 <Crion> Then: "That sounds like...Sky Mother." That would be HER keeper. 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart stands up, pacing off nervous energy and rubbing the back of his neck. "EXACTLY! They-- we got out, right? That's the story. But away from what? A sky mother. The burning core that says I AM. Into what? The domain of the God Machine." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> "There was no out. There is no in! There's only here. Or... only there." 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks at Lauren as if she now holds his life in her hands. 23:09 <Crion> She pauses for a long time. Then: "...When the Huntsman came, when he found me so easily -- so easily after I found you -- I...had similar thoughts. I wondered if I'd ever really escaped. If I was being toyed with -- if people around me were being used to toy with me! A good thing in my life had happened, a great thing, and it was followed fucking, mercilessly, by blood and terror and... so 23:09 <Crion> I wondered. If it was all some kind of trap. And then I realized, being with you, having you next to me, that there was no way to outsmart it, if it was everything. If I did that I'd spend the rest of my life standing still, and alone. And maybe THAT was the trap. 23:09 <Crion> "So I fully bought in, to you and to us, and decided the only way out was through." 23:10 <Crion> "I've been through the progressions here -- this is just what you'd expect a Keeper trap to say to you -- and I don't really have any response to that which can satisfy the logic." 23:10 <Crion> "All I've got is me, and what I feel for you." 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's voice is a lot thicker now. "I've been so afraid of you." 23:20 <Crion> Lauren: "If you want to run, I want to run with you. If you want to hide, I'll hide with you. If you want me to leave...I'll understand. In time. But I've made my choice." 23:20 <VoxPVoxD> "If it was anyone else -- if it was everyone else -- then I could deal, you know? I could live with that. I could solve that. Even the others. Coming out the way I did, directly into that, how fast it came together, how easy to love they all are... it fit. It fit really well. But the thought that you-- that none of this was real, I--" Stewart can't finish the sentence. 23:30 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart shakes his head. "I haven't thought about leaving since-- since way before any of this. And where would we even go? No. Whatever happens it has to happen here." He takes her hands in his, and is about to kneel down before he realizes he's about to kneel down, and sits back beside her at the table. "Will you stay with me? Will you stay here with me? No matter how strange or 23:30 <VoxPVoxD> scary it gets?" 23:32 <Crion> "Yes," she says, then climbs into his lap and kisses him long and hard. And when she breaks the kiss, she stares him in the eyes and reiterates: "Yes." 23:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart returns the kiss fiercely, and doesn't let go when it breaks. "I love you," he says again, with effortless force and conviction. 23:36 <Crion> As the two lovers move against each other in the dark, Chup muows smugly, liberating a forgotten piece of pizza.