Not all people, but most, had tells when they started talking crazy shit -- the government bugging their cornflakes or their eleven year-old daughter seducing their man. Even when they believed, absolutely believed what they were saying, there was a shift in tone, a quirk of an eyebrow, that suggested a more rational part of them, somewhere, knew better and was rebelling as best it could. Near wasn’t getting that with Jude. He wasn’t raving. Not exactly. He didn’t seem strung out, either, just awkward. What he recalled more than anything else was one of those hypersensitive geeks from school, the ones who expounded to anyone who would listen on how The Lord of the Rings or whatever was the greatest of mankind’s achievements and then got breathless and upset when their audience didn’t agree. You’re just not smart enough to get it. And it would have been easy enough to shrug the whole thing off as a tantrum if not for the unavoidable reality of the demonstration Near was now trying not to reflect on too carefully. However disjointed their interaction had been so far, there was a lot to be said for the show first, talk later strategy.
You just don’t believe in magic and you don’t want to, the kid sulked. So he couldn’t take assumptions, but he could dish them out. “How do you know what it is I really want?” rippled through Near’s memory, because, really, how the hell could he know what Near believed when he hadn’t bothered to ask, and who the hell didn’t want to believe in magic, but it lacked the exact structure it required to repeat it effectively and it was petty, anyway. He didn’t want to be petty.
“So. Ask.”
The words sounded harsher on his tongue than they had in his head. A challenge. A demand. But they felt right, too, and he didn’t try to soften anything after.
You just don’t believe in magic and you don’t want to, the kid sulked. So he couldn’t take assumptions, but he could dish them out. “How do you know what it is I really want?” rippled through Near’s memory, because, really, how the hell could he know what Near believed when he hadn’t bothered to ask, and who the hell didn’t want to believe in magic, but it lacked the exact structure it required to repeat it effectively and it was petty, anyway. He didn’t want to be petty.
“So. Ask.”
The words sounded harsher on his tongue than they had in his head. A challenge. A demand. But they felt right, too, and he didn’t try to soften anything after.