Difference between revisions of "Logs:Dangerous Lies"

Since certain personal discoveries, playing cards has become less a casual pastime and more a shared education or a game within a game - to see if one can catch the other up to their tricks. Tonight has had stakes, just for fun, mostly clothes because why not? So Lys lacks a shirt, though she retains her black bra and pants so far, looking down at the hand she's been dealt even as she reaches her free one to pick up her drink. "I saw your cousin the other day," might well seem totally casual even if the timing is almost certainly chosen.

Lys lacking a shirt is probably going to not do any favors for V'ret's concentration--but maybe that's the next level of practice. Performing despite distractions. It's slow learning; he's peeling off his own shirt to join hers, and she probably has the advantage in number of articles of clothing. Then he picks up his cards again. Two layers of distraction, though? Maybe that's harder. He blinks at her, puzzled. Maybe under the circumstances it's taking a moment for his brain to access that part that keeps track of this part of the narrative. "Jo?"

She looks back at him, definitely taking in the slowness of that processing, eyes narrowing just enough to say she noticed. Then she shifts a card's placement in her hand, look mild. The troubling thing about playing with Lys is that her 'tells' vary depending on her mood. She doesn't have one 'set' poker face, yet. "Yes. You'd be fine with her showing me the ropes before Evyth flies, if I need her to, wouldn't you?" A pair of tokens are tossed into the center of the table. The token that can only mean her pants and at least one part of her undergarments if she loses.

After eyeing his own hand, and her face, and his own hand, and her face, V'ret matches her. That confident? Or trying to look it. Except he's also looking a bit flustered, but that doesn't seem to have much to do with the cards. There's one way to hide how you feel about your hand. "The ropes. Like--naked? With Jo?" His brain is broken. Maybe he doesn't even have a hand worth betting on at all, here. Who knows.

A single brow arches at the matching of the bet. Bold. Lys looks him over, as if weighing that against the possibility that it's bravado. "Yes, those ropes. I might not need the option, but I don't want to go into Evyth's first flight not knowing what that would be like. I don't want to hurt someone." It's being a responsible greenrider is what she's saying. "Jo doesn't want things to be weird between the two of you if she does, so I told her I'd talk with you about it. I mean, it's just sex." Her pause is brief, "Unless you don't want me doing her because you want to do her?" Holdbred are weird, her mildly suspicious look says as much.

"I understand that. I mean--" Options are being weighed, but it's not unreasonable to expect V'ret would have to be doing some thinking about this sort of thing. "It has definitely occurred to me that I should be finding a guy." There, carefully, eyes on her face and looking for... what? A flinch of disgust? "I don't want Jo. I mean, it's not that I can't see she's attractive." Hasty addition, given what he just said. Look, look at all the girls he finds attractive. "But..." She's family? "I don't think Jo is a very... safe person." And how many times has he said he wants Lys to be safe? Bunches.

"Yes, you should," has zero flinching and zero hesitation to it. "Even if it might not be your preference," Lys allows that carefully, looking at his expression for-- what? A flinch? Disgust? Perhaps the same things he just looked for in hers. They are playing a game of bluffs sometimes. "Maybe after you can see your way to helping me know what it would be like if some over-eager gay man found an unintentional target so I'm not wholly unprepared should it happen during a flight." She turns her cards over. A bluff. Her confidence was a bluff. Or perhaps she meant to lose. Either way, even before he lays down his cards shes rising to reach back to unhook her bra. "Jo is very attractive," she confirms as she does. "She wouldn't hurt me during that. Not in a bad way. She knows who I am to Irianke and I know who she's been to Irianke, and that affords some measure of certainty. We'd fuck and it would be good, I imagine, and then--" She shrugs. Then what?

V'ret's cards are... good, but not so fantastic that he wasn't taking a risk, there. The bra coming off goes a long way towards giving him something to pay attention to that isn't the current conversation, though he doesn't actually move to help. Sometimes, a man just wants a show, right? "I don't know that... it sounds so bad," he finally allows for. "I mean, I've done that before." Pause. "With women." If not just. It's not a complete fabrication. "You might like it." He might like it. If he's trying to pretend disinterest in this, it's going terribly. But it doesn't work completely as far as distracting his attention. He gathers the cards back up to shuffle and deal again. "Being very attractive doesn't mean she's not dangerous. It's better not to get tangled up with dangerous people any more than you need to. I mean, it's good, and then what? You never speak to her again?"

Lys doesn't seem like she's about to encourage him to get up, not when she's working the laces of her pants with one hand and staring so intensely at his face. That flick of her tongue across her lips just when he happens to look up that far can't be an idle movement. "I might," she allows the possibility. "Some people do, I've heard." Probably those gabby roommates again. She considers him as the pants slide slo-o-o-owly down over her thighs and to the ground where she can step out of them. "Why would I need to never speak to her again? She's your cousin," she points this out with a little, challenging movement to her eyebrows. "Besides, we're all dangerous in our own ways, aren't we?" She looks at him-- well, she's giving him one of those smolderingly sexual looks, like she really, really wants him, like she might just be trying to have him right there on the table. Has he figured out yet in which way Lys is dangerous to him?

"She's..." What is she? V'ret can't remember, with his eyes on her like that. Not eye contact, of course, don't be ridiculous. Her mouth, her breasts, her thighs, not necessarily in that order. He might not be removing his trousers, but the front of them suddenly requires some re-adjustment, which he isn't subtle about. Like she might miss the impact she's having. "If it's good, and you keep doing it," and he's not saying he's totally in favor of that but at least he's not acting like it's an unreasonable notion, "then that definitely counts as entanglement. She's..." The hardest things take a few times to say.

"I'm not interested in her that way," Lys can say it seriously. "She's attractive and I wouldn't have a bad time, I'm sure, but it's about the sex, V'ret. Just because you have good sex with someone once doesn't mean you do it again and again." She moves to retake her seat. Clearly, something in his response requires the loss of privilege that is ogling her thighs and underwear. "And I might not even need her, but it makes me uncomfortable to think that I don't have a solid back-up plan if I need it. If it's not her, it will be someone else. Are you going to screen them all to make sure they're lousy enough in bed that I don't want to carry on?" Neverminding that if she doesn't need Jo, it's almost certainly because she will be carrying on with someone else. Her tone is starting to sound a little more miffed than probably is ideal for how this conversation should go. If his inner alarms are functioning properly, there should be at least one sounding the signal to tread carefully.

His inner alarms for that sort of thing are functioning fine, thankfully. Possibly better than they should be. V'ret is suddenly paying far more attention to his cards than he really needs to be. "No. Of course I won't--no." Retreat, retreat, retreat. "I'm sure," though it sounds pained and not at all sure, "that you can figure out what's..." What's the right thing to say here? Now he's back to that, to the slow working out of Right Answers. "What's right for you. No matter who that is. Or when, or how." And no matter how ill it makes him look to think about.

Something must be wrong with that answer, too, judging by the way Lys looks at him over the top of her drink. "Do you want it to be someone else?" Someone who's not Jo. "Someone you don't know about?" There's an edge to those questions, a frustrated edge. "I'll find someone else." But she doesn't pick up her cards. Instead, she's getting back up and crouching to collect her pants. She forfeits? That might mean she's supposed to take off clothes, not put them back on. Maybe she doesn't know the rules, or maybe she doesn't care.

The moment she looks like she's dressing again, V'ret puts his cards down. Face up, which is wrong, of course. There's nothing there. Not even a pair. "She's not my cousin." Not like this should be anything of that level of import, of course, but he still says it like it's something momentous. "You can't tell anyone that. I don't know--I don't know why she didn't just put you off. I don't know what she's playing at, but I don't know why she's playing along with this and it scares me." Deep breath. His eyes are still on the cards, even now.

"What?" Lys' sharp inquiry after his first admission and the way it pulls her head to look at him dubiously from her couch at least stops her from doing more than wrapping her fingers into the fabric of her pants. She arrests there, listening, eyes sharp, taking in his expression. She's silent and her expression is utterly unreadable. "You lied," are two hard words and she straightens, hands moving to settle on her hips as she stares at him.

They are very, very hard words, to judge from the way they seem to stop V'ret from saying anything intelligent to answer them. He rubs his face, rubs his eyes. Do either of those things help? Only minimally. "I don't know what to make of Jo. I don't know if she cares. I don't know if maybe now that she's here, things are different. I know--I don't even know what I know, Lys. What am I supposed to say?" Like she's going to have any better idea. He doesn't get up to join her, though there's a momentary wistful look at the spot next to her. Like there might be comfort there. "Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe somebody back home would. I have been trying to keep you from getting mixed up in this." That explains... not very much, admittedly. "I love you." It's plaintive. Like a prayer to a god who doesn't exist: let it fix something.

She continues to stare, hard. It's not quite a glare though. It is as though she's trying to see through his words to tell if there's truth in the bones of them. "Start from the beginning," Lys enunciates very crisply.

From the beginning: this is a tall order. "We could be here all night." But this doesn't mean V'ret isn't going to divulge anything. It does mean he needs to have a drink first, apparently. And then he starts with an attempt to cheat at a card game with the wrong guy, runs through various exploits at making marks for somebody else, and winds up with the vagueness of his current position: "We're supposed to be here to be useful. I'm not the only one, but those..." A pause. "I don't think those are my secrets to tell, not unless there's a reason you need to know. I have no idea, if I never end up Weyrleader, what useful even means. Even if I do end up Weyrleader." Then, finally: "It was simpler, before I Impressed. I trust them as much as I trust K'del or any of the rest of that lot who've had their whole lives handed to them on a silver platter." Pause. "It was simpler before I met you."

Lys watches him, his every expression, every movement through all. Her hands don't move and neither does the rest of her, not even a microexpression to betray her reactions to him. This is one of the products of an unobtrusive life in the kitchens, schooling reactions, hiding them or changing them as desired. When she moves, it's to crouch again and pick up her pants. She shakes them out, expression as bland as if he'd just told her how his favorite food came to be baked pears. She's looking at her pants and then she looks over at the man, then to her pants again, considering. Finally, she drapes the pants over her arm and folds her arms across her chest, the pants effectively blocking all the most intimate bits. "What do you want, V'ret?"

"I want..." There's a moment's hesitation, but not nearly as long to think about this as the question might warrant. "I want to know that whatever happens, you'll be there. I want to be able to trust that you'll be on my side, if things go wrong. But I also want to know that you're not going to be the thing that someone uses against me." V'ret finally does get up to cross over and sit closer to her. "If I can't have both of those things, I would rather have you with me than safe." A fact that seems to pain him. "I can't wish it never happened. If it never happened, I wouldn't be here."

Lys looks down at him, expression flickering briefly to unhappy before smoothing into unreadable again. "Okay," is some measure of acceptance of the words at least. "Beyond that. Now that you've Impressed, now that we're here. Now that there's Zoth to consider in all this. What do you want? Where do your loyalties lie?" She's quite serious in her questions, her demeanor having shifted rapidly to one more worldly wise than previously revealed.

"Him. You." Simple, this one. V'ret spends so much time thinking about some things, but this one doesn't warrant the introspection. Though he adds, almost like his mouth is now on autopilot with this honesty thing: "My mother, or what little I can do for her." He does stop short of elaborating too much with that. But some ideas are only half-formed, and those don't need to be given voice. And, anyway, what he can do now is less than he thinks. "I would have said my father, but he's gone. I don't owe anything to anybody who wields power by accident of birth or circumstance. Or to anyone who took what they have from people with less. Find me someone who is neither of those things, I would follow them to the end of Pern." But the bitterness in it suggests he expects to find no such thing.

Lys considers him. Her look ceases to be unreadable in that it becomes obvious that she's weighing his words and his answers on some internal scale. It isn't exactly that she finds him wanting, but rather that it would seem her information is incomplete. "Jo." She comes back to it. "If you had your way, what would you do?" Presumably about those people and his original reasons for coming to the Weyr.

The lift of his shoulders has an unfortunate tinge of helplessness. "Wait. See if anyone still cares that I'm alive in a year or two. Figure out which way the wind's blowing. Make nice and avoid telling anyone anything." Exactly what V'ret was doing before. And see how well it's been working! Sort of. "If she has enough influence with the Weyrwoman, I won't matter. I don't know if that's a good thing." His eyes drift away, there. "R'hin is dead." There it is, like he's turning it around in his head even in that moment, trying to wear the rough edges of the unpleasant thought back smooth again. "Two people were there when it happened."

It's not nice, but it is very Lys (though not as she usually is with V'ret) to say bluntly, "You're afraid of her," almost daring V'ret to be stupid enough to deny it with a slight twitch of a brow. "And you're making stupid decisions because of it." That's probably most stinging for how matter of fact she makes it. Then she turns around, and certainly that he's given a nice view of her thong as she walks toward the bedroom is no mistake. "Come here," she calls back to him. It's somehow both an invitation and something that holds silent consequence should he elect to do otherwise. "If you're going to play the game, be a player, not a pawn," drifts back as if this might clue him into just what she plans to do or say once they're more thoroughly sequestered.

With that view, it doesn't take much persuading for V'ret to trail after her, though this does not do much for his establishing himself as something other than a pawn. "I am, of course I am, but I don't know what that changes. I don't know anything. About the only thing I do know is how little I know about all this." Excuses possibly made more flustered by other thoughts intruding on all this serious business.

"What would you have done..." Lys asks as she turns, casually flinging her held pants to the floor and sitting on the edge of the bed, "... if I were one of Jo's?" Her expression is unreadable. What if she is? Whether she is or not, she's leaning back on her elbows and looking up at him, toes just barely touching the floor.

V'ret lingers in the doorway, hands in his pockets as he looks at her. "If trusting you is a mistake, it's one I will make every time, whatever that costs me." There's a ghost of a smile, there. "I intended for you to be mine. That hasn't gone exactly as I intended. Even so. Either we're on the same team," and here he is at least brave enough to come sit down on the edge of the bed, not far away but not quite beside her, "or I lose, no matter which way you go."

"I know where my loyalties lie," Lys murmurs, looking over at him. "We can talk about that later. You're not thinking clearly now." There are some discussions that are better when sex is crowding out more rational thoughts and it says something about the greenrider's agenda that she doesn't want that to be the case. "Take me," is simple instruction as she scoots back on the bed and gives him her best come hither look.