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[abrightboy]

This is Bright. Leave a message.

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[pharadyne]

Neal fell into stasis during our dinner date. He's fine, but...in the past it seems as if he usually stayed in your cabin when that happened. Is that what he prefers? We'd never discussed it, although perhaps we should have. Some help making him comfortable would be dolly either way, and I think you're the person on this ship he trusts most.

[abrightboy]

Yeah, he c… I am? The most?

[pharadyne]

Well, I don't have numeric scoring for it, darling, but that's my impression.

[He knows there are other people Neal is close to. Raylan. Eiffel. Shaw. But none of them were his former warden, too. It creates a bond.]

[abrightboy]

Okay. Well. I’m coming to get him. I can carry him, unless you want to.

[pharadyne]

No, I can have him outside your cabin in a jiffy, just have your door open to help carry him inside and don't ask how I got him there.

[And with that statement, Norton pulls Neal up out of the chair and into his arms, and teleports himself and Neal to deck three.]

[abrightboy]

[Malcolm opens his door and spots them immediately, taking Neal’s arm to gently steer him into a fireman hold across Malcolm’s shoulders.]

Come on in, Norton.

[pharadyne]

[Norton helps get Neal securely on Malcolm's shoulders, fluttering about to make sure he doesn't fall, and follows Malcolm into his cabin.]

I was going to give him my inmate file when he fell unconscious. I think it's a cosmic sign.

[abrightboy]

That you should have given it to him weeks ago? I know, but you can’t change the past. You should do it on a night you make him dinner, and when I say ‘make’, I mean have catered, like we talked about… is there sauce on his collar?

[pharadyne]

Could be. I thought I'd cleaned it all up but... [He spots the stain Malcolm is talking about and rubs his thumb over it.] Damn. That's a good shirt, too. I'll bring you one of his shirts so he won't have to wear stained clothing when he wakes up. Maybe pajamas as well? That would more comfortable, I should think.

[He's fussing a little, knows he's fussing and that he should probably stop, but it always makes him a bit nervous when people go into a stasis.]

[abrightboy]

Pajamas. Yes. I might move him to the sofa upstairs, too. Kikimora has the bedroom up there but she shouldn't mind a coma patient in the next room. That way he won't feel like a museum exhibit.

[pharadyne]

Stasis. [Norton says automatically. He rejects the word "coma" to describe the phenomenon, has for over two years now. Thinks it sounds much too alarming. He hasn't yet managed to get the rest of the ship to change vocabulary, but he won't stop trying.]

If he were a museum exhibit, I'd go to the museum every day.

[abrightboy]

I don't think you're the only one. He's magnetic, right?

[pharadyne]

He certainly is. I don't know how you ever turned him down. But your loss is my gain.

[abrightboy]

He was my inmate at the time. That would have been taking advantage of him.

[pharadyne]

Would it have been? When I was an inmate, I slept with a few of my temporary wardens and tried to sleep with both my permanent wardens. Never felt the least bit taken advantage of.

Not to say it's never a consideration, but I don't think it's inherently baked in.

[abrightboy]

But your permanent Wardens didn’t sleep with you. An inmate’s permanent Warden is the only person on board with direct authority over an Inmate. That’s what makes it messy.

[pharadyne]

Still wouldn't say they were avoiding taking advantage of me. If I'd been successful, I would have absolutely taken advantage of my wardens, though. Their attachment. But that doesn't necessarily require sex, does it. Lots of wardens befriend their inmates, adopt their inmates, have deep ties with their inmates, but as soon as charvering is involved, people start clutching their pearls.

[abrightboy]

I don’t think it’s about prudishness. It’s about the extremely fraught emotional dimension sex adds. And doesn’t the Admiral demote Wardens for sexual relations with their own Inmates?

[pharadyne]

I've never heard of the Admiral demoting a Warden over that. Although I don't know anyone who's done it, either. I did offer my inmate a blowjob, but he declined.

I still don't see why sex should be presumed to automatically add a fraught emotional dimension. Or an emotional dimension at all. Friendship has emotions. Sex is just a physical act. I've had sex with people I don't even like very much.

[abrightboy]

Which you should probably examine; you did point out that you use it to manipulate people, as well.

[pharadyne]

I don't think there's much to examine there. You encourage someone to want something, then you give it to them so they get a taste for it, and once you've established yourself as the source of the thing they want, they're inclined to do favours for you to keep getting it. [Very romantic.]

Or sometimes a terrible person is just hot. Or it can mollify a bad situation. There's lots of reasons to have sex with someone I don't like.

[abrightboy]

All of which are excuses to avoid emotional intimacy.

[pharadyne]

Why would I want emotional intimacy with someone I charver and don't like?

[abrightboy]

You wouldn’t. That’s why doing them is a sure fire way to avoid emotional intimacy.

[pharadyne]

Oh I see what you mean!

Well. Yes. Is that a problem?