we will seek my buried inheritance

[self_composed]

Bella fixes French toast for breakfast to salvage stale bread, and, having seen Charlie off to work, hops in her own car and makes for Alice's house. She arrives at nine-thirty, and goes up to the doorbell and rings it.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, I don't walk around in a constant state of desperately horny, or anything."

[self_composed]

"Fair enough. Anything else?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Yeah," he says, "but after this it's kind of - I don't know, hard to articulate? Like, some of them I know what they are, but I don't know what they're called."

[self_composed]

"Okay... examples, maybe?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Um... when you called me a freak," he says. "The five percent of me that was not busy falling in love was really turned on."

[self_composed]

"So those are separate things," Bella notes. "What else?"

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice looks away; checks the map; looks back; looks away again. Apparently he is having some trouble with this one.

[self_composed]

"We going the right way?" she asks, watching him check the map. "I think we're still heading south-maybe-south-southwest."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep," he says, with a brief smile. "Still on track."

[self_composed]

"Is there another example of the same thing?" Bella asks.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep," he repeats, rather more subdued. "You've heard it already, though."

[self_composed]

"Saw it drawn, rather?" Bella asks, to make sure.

[edgeofyourseat]

He breathes a sigh of relief at not having to say it.

"Yeah. Fucked up, I know."

[self_composed]

"It's nothing special for features of you to be fucked up, we already know that," Bella says. "Can you think of any more or is this what we have to work with?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Uh... you reading my mind is a little of the same kind of thing," he says.

[self_composed]

"Huh."

Bella mulls this over.

"There does seem to be some manner of thread running through the things but I don't know how to put it either."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep. Toldja."

He writes down: thing with no name (mind-reading??)

[self_composed]

"Surprises that could be really bad," says Bella, but she doesn't sound confident in the characterization.

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Well, I do like surprises," he says, "but that's a different thing. I mean, I am looking forward to you reading my mind, that's not gonna be a surprise at all."

[self_composed]

"It's surprising that I could do it, as of yesterday," Bella says. "But yeah, that doesn't seem exactly right."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Maybe it's a power thing?" he says. "Not sure. I don't think that's completely it, but it might be part of it."

[self_composed]

"Would it still count if the mindreading thing was pauseable at will on your end, instead of mine - if we turned you into a projective telepath instead of turning me into a mindreader?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Kind of," he says. "But less. Like, this counts a little bit, not enough to turn me on, just enough to be... nice."

[self_composed]

"What, just me interrogating you?" Bella blinks.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep."