[Social] Expressive Iteration

[Miriam Bell]

The music room is filled with the sound of animated piano tones with a perhaps surprising sight of Miriam at the keys of the large instrument, fingers deftly dancing across the keys and an almost startling amount of emotion on display in her body-language. The chords in the repeated start-and-stop permutations of the song are played in an almost harsh desperation which does at least seem more in line with what one might expect from Miriam. Not all her time in the repeating loop had been wasted and eventually monotony had forced even someone as stubborn as her to search out something productive to do with herself. That kind of almost forced optimism still clings to her as she plays, though being out of cyclical time cuts through that association with a kind of elation she'd struggle to express otherwise. It's probably the most open and genuine anybody has seen Miriam in a while if not ever.

[Will Stanton]

Will stood in the doorframe, leaning back against one of the walls as he listened to Miriam play. MIriam's always had something of an interest in music, sure, but it was more in listening and having someone else play while she did...well, whatever is she wanted to do. Of course, some of that was more Melopene, naturally; Will had spent more than his fair share of time playing for her during The General Unpleasentness. But stooping to playing the piano herself? That was a level of openness and expression that was generally not in Miriam's wheelhouse; a vulnerability she usually placed behind shields and walls.

And so, given this rare opportunity to see her open like this, Will stood and listened, rather than interrupting.

[Miriam Bell]

Being a telepath meant trying to ignore an audience was even harder, though she had probably left herself open for this by not closing the door. Still, she had to fight down the urge to not immediately slam the walls down upon feeling Will's thoughts at the edge of her perception. Sure, it was probably genuine surprise and interest but to her it was hard not to feel the amusement as a kind of mockery. And no amount of awareness of that fact quite manages to quell that initial reaction. But where she once would have slammed the piano closed in embarrassment she manages to keep playing out of a kind of stubborn spite that's mostly dissipated by the time she finishes out the song, letting the final notes trail off.

[Will Stanton]

"I didn't know you could play, Miriam," Will said, as the final notes reverberated into silence. "In fact, I'm fairly sure I knew you couldn't play. That's quite a lot you've picked up there, recently. It sounded quite good, actually."

[Miriam Bell]

"I had a lot of time on my hands." she says with a sigh that relinquishes some lingering feelings of getting caught out, leaning her head back to stare at the ceiling for a moment. "Not all of it was spent playing out questionable and invasive scenarios with my friends."

[Will Stanton]

"I dunno, it sounds like you were able to finagle free piano lessons from someone," Will said, with a shit-eating grin on his face. "A clever little con game -- a promise to pay on a Tuesday that never comes. Maybe the most G-rated of those questionable scenarios you mentioned?" he teased.

[Miriam Bell]

"You know..." she says, finally turning to actually look at Will. "If I'd realized how smug you'd be about this I would have gladly taken ten times as long teaching myself." she says with a slight smirk. "You actually figured out something was up a couple times, though you usually assumed I'd messed with your head so you wouldn't remember teaching me. Which... I suppose that is something I'd do rather than have to admit I need help..."

[Will Stanton]

Will thought that over for a minute.

"Yeah, I could imagine a walled off room in my mind, with a piano teacher just waiting to be let out. Some kind of special keyword or sign from you, and out they come, ready to pick up where they left off, only to be put back in the box when you were done with them. All the benefits of my skill without the unbearable embarrassment of being known to be imperfect, right?" he laughed. "Well, my compliments to your teacher; you sounded like you knew what the hell you were doing."

[Miriam Bell]

"Thanks..." she said hesitantly. Somehow the roundabout way of being complimented made it easier to just accept at face value. "And sorry for... you know... I realized I never really apologized for taking advantage of the situation. At the very least I still owe you for teaching me. It certainly took long enough, no thanks to me being a lousy student." she says, wringing her hands and avoiding looking at Will directly. She feels supremely stupid right now even if she knows none of this is something she should be embarrassed about. Guilty, sure, but not this awkward bullshit.

"It helped more than I would have imagined."

[Will Stanton]

"I...know a thing or two about being unmoored, Miriam. And that's what you were -- jostled free from time itself. Your loops making you an outsider, next to people living their lives as normal, in a way you could never really join in on. It's hard, and no one can be expected to be completely on their best behavior during something like that. I think this is the perfect example of a no harm, no foul situation."

He, too, looked a little awkward discussing all this. It got a little too close to the core of matters for his own personal comfort as well; he usually hides his pain behind a wall of...well, Williness, as it were.

"Besides, you've earned more than your fair share of leeway, I'd say. What else are friends for?"

[Miriam Bell]

"To excuse awful behavior? If I'd known that I might have tried harder to make friends." she says, sarcasm heavy in her voice. That's at least a bit more familiar ground. "And don't try to laud me for that self sacrifice shite. That was a one time deal, courtesy of too much time spent listening to everyone's identical thoughts day in and day out. Besides, had to figure Miss Morrigan wasn't going to let me get away with that without upstaging me somehow." Yeah, definitely no lingering feelings there.

"Look I..." she hems and haws, running her hand through her hair to sweep it out of her face. One would think she could just fall back on letting her thoughts seep directly into Will's mind but that would require her to have more than a vague feeling and incoherent thoughts to begin with. What is there even to be said after everything that has happened between the two of them. 'Friends' doesn't really do it justice but neither does anything else. They'd been each others crutch, though Miriam certainly abused that more than Will did, leeway for recent incidences aside. "Bloody hell, I don't know." Suddenly there are tears in her eyes and she angrily blinks them away. "I feel like we're closer than just friends but I can't just... keep latching on to anyone who refuses to be shoved away. And the last time I tried that I literally ripped you in half."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, that's because you're not good at this. At normal, interpersonal relations, that is. You really might well be the worst person I have ever met when it comes to expressing what people mean to you, and I've met some really fucked up people."

"But don't try to pull that "'I'm so guilty' card on me, Miriam. Yeah, you ripped me in twain. This was shortly after I attempted to murder you, remember? As in killing you, to death? Stabby-stabby? I'm sure that never came up in your frustrations in the time loops. A little well-deserved revenge in a time frame you couldn't feel bad about because consequences didn't, and couldn't, happen?"

"Look. We are both fucked up. Beyond all recognition and, at times, beyond all repair. But we keep each other tethered to something. And if that means occasionally I get torn in two, well, that may be more because of me than of you. Because, let me tell you something, Miriam -- if there wasn't a little part of me, deep down inside, who didn't believe he deserved that kind of treatment? Crazy mind juju or not, I think I would have long since cut you out of my life.

And yet here I am, listening to the music. I don't know what we are. I don't know if we can define it, or if we'd want to define it. But like a moth to a flame, I'm here when you need me."

[Miriam Bell]

"Oh fuck off, it's not guilt. A little maybe but it's more that when I try to hold on to people things break. And you might be able to bounce back from that because you're made of mud inside and out but I don't know if I can. I couldn't even work up to this without spending months just... burning out on all the ways I could hate myself. And the fucked up part is that the thread I'm hanging on is probably firmer than it has been in a long time. But you're right, it was lonely and I... fuck..." she quietly snaps at herself and wipes at her cheeks.

"I want to stop breaking but I just... can't fill this pit in my soul and I feel like I've already dragged you through it every which way and it's like the one shape I can't seem to make you take. Fuck, this is so stupid." she presses the palms of her hands against her eyes as if she could stop herself from crying by sheer anger alone. And it almost works to make her regain a little composure. "How is it I seem to know you too well to... to... let you close? How does that make sense?"

[Will Stanton]

"You're still worried about me snapping. If you're so sure that everything you hold onto break, and you actually care about me, then there's a part of you, somewhere, that's pushing me away. Because you're afraid you're going to hurt me, or something. Because you feel that somewhere, inside, you don't deserve it.

And, if we're going to use that metaphor...if we open up that pit in your soul to someone, you risk them seeing what's deep inside of you. And that's terrifying, I'm sure. Because whatever you think about me, or anyone else for that matter, there's one person you just can't seem to like enough -- and that's yourself, isn't it? Deep down inside, you feel like you're not worthy of having someone care about you. Because you break them. Because once they get past...whatever level of control you try to have in a situation, and see the real you, that's when shit hits the fan, right?

Well, Miriam. I've seen the worst of you. I've seen worse than the worst of you. I spent months having an evil, twisted, psychopathic version of you shitting in my mind. And I've seen what you've got in that pit of yours, and you know what? Whether you like to think it or not, I know what's inside you. I've bathed in it. And I still gave you piano lessons.

If you hold everyone at arm's length? You can do that. You can tell the world to go fuck itself, and it will listen to you, because you have that sort of way of carrying yourself. But as much as you like to think you break people, some of us are still here. And maybe, if you burn off all that self-hatred, you'll find what's left can be something that helps cure that lonliness.

What else did you do? Those months of looping back and forth? What else happened?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I think I actually believe you. About you not snapping or leaving or being disgusted. I've seen what She did to you and somehow you can still look me in the eyes and trust me inside your mind. I don't get it but somehow I believe it. But I break myself. A little bit every time I try to reach out and make a connection and fail. Wanda, you, Sam, you again. You're right, I've let you in, you've seen the worst of it. I've even gotten better thanks to everything, what with this conversation actually happening and not being a complete shitshow. Just a minor disaster." she chokes out a laugh.

"I can show you what happened. If you really want to know. I will spare you the time I tried to make you into Norma. That... I don't think I've ever been lower than that and I could feel your disgust about it for every second of it. Maybe it's not fair to keep that from you but I could not bring myself to relive it. There was a lot of... intimate tension relief. I thought maybe if you wouldn't remember it I could... I don't know... figure out how to make it feel less hollow. Trial and error, right? Ease myself out of that arm's length or... something." she trails off, her tone making it very clear that it didn't work. Not the way she wanted it to anyway.

[Will Stanton]

"If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. What happens in a time loop stays in the time loop, and I'm sure there are things you did only because you knew there are things no one would ever know. I grant you the gift of privacy, if you want to look at it like that. And I understand the urge to make me into...someone you lost. But that is just going to be a wedge into your own heart. Better to be made up wholecloth than to be a pale imitation of someone you loved.

And, well, I guess I have to apologize. I would have thought I would have been better at, erm, 'intimate tension relief'. At least, I've received very few complaints in the past," he added, with the cocky smirk returning as he tried to lighten the atmosphere just a tad. "I mean, not as a permanent measure to fix anything. But Goddess, I hope you at least had a little fun in those loops. If you got somewhat better, that is."

[Miriam Bell]

"Oh I am sorry, I did not mean to besmirch your pride as a sex toy." she mockingly smirks back, definitely firmer on this particular ground. "Rest assured that that was not the problem, you can be quite accommodating. But... hell I don't know, I guess I was hoping I could figure out how to make it mean anything. To let it mean anything? You've been closer than anyone to the 'real me' except maybe Sam so how come the sex and the rest never meshed? What if people have seen the real me and it still doesn't... fit." she shrugs helplessly, turning back to the piano and slowly plinking out a couple of dissonant notes.

"I'm not an idiot. I can see how you feel about others." she goes on after a moment, letting her fingers fall onto more harmonious chords. "Your Sam, this Sam, your daughter, your wife. For fuck's sake, you're married and a billion years old. What do you need me for except as some kind of... hair of the dog that bit you."

[Will Stanton]

"It's hard for anything to mean anything when it gets reset every 24 hours. You're just throwing things into a void, there; and without the ability to bring anything through, nothing can grow. You probably had to rush through the same damn conversations fifty or sixty times, going through the motions. That has to be boring, if nothing else.

And you can see me. You can see the real me. Do I feel the same about my Sam and this Sam? About either of them and Sara? About either of the three of them and Robin? They're just interchangeable parts, are they?"

[Miriam Bell]

"That's not what I meant. I don't even know what I meant anymore, but it wasn't that." she mutters and this time she does slam the piano cover shut. "Maybe I'm just jealous about something that doesn't even really exist."

[Will Stanton]

"Alright then, let's take another tack.

What do you WANT this to mean, hrm? Forget about whether or not I need something else. You were looking for something in me. What is it that you want?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I... don't know, Will." she sighs, resting her forehead in her hand with her elbow propped up on the piano. "But it's not anything and everything because I just end up projecting everything that's broken about me into you."

[Will Stanton]

Will paused for a moment, and then sat down on the piano bench near to Miriam, flipping the lid back open (and bumping Miriam's elbow off in the process).

"You start with one note, here," he said, fingering down a C pentatonic riff slowly. "As a root, a base on which to build things off of. And then, when you get a little comfortable with that, you can start working in chords," he continued, adding in extra notes. "Basic cords. And then spicier ones. Maybe those spicy cords don't work in all circumstances," he said, hitting a particularly dissonant set of notes. "Maybe, objectively, they rub against each other and cause friction. But when put in the proper context, they can be so, so much more interesting than just the same chords you hear over and over again," he said, resolving the chord into it's root. "Tension...and release."

"There are no wrong notes. Nothing is really broken. It's just finding the right way to use things, that's all..."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam sighs and scoots to make room for Will, even putting her hand on the keys to play along quite literally. Following Will's lead she accompanies his notes as much as the point he's making. Somehow it helps not to put it into words directly. "I know. I just feel like your song is too... fuck I didn't pay enough attention to the theory to play along with your metaphor. I step into and you yield, there's no footing in a sea of clay that wants to conform to me. By the time I feel solid ground I've pushed too far. I can't hold you and myself together and I'm afraid that's all you want from me, to mold you into shapes." she says, letting her fingers play out a series of notes that converge into one dissonant chord.

[Will Stanton]

"You ask what I need you for; what you can give that I don't get from Sara or Robin or Sam or Sam. You're willing to push, where they aren't. Maybe that's something I need.

But the question remains, as always, what you need," he said, continuing to play. "A root note by itself is meaningless. If you don't know what you need, or what you want, then yes, there is no harmony. Nothing there to provide meaning. It's a two-way street."

[Miriam Bell]

There it is again, that yawning void. Miriam's head sinks a little and her playing falls off.

"I don't know. I guess I keep hoping to recognize it in somebody else when I see it..."

[Will Stanton]

"Alright, maybe you do need to tell me what you tried during the loop, because you're coming into this with more cards than I have. Unless you want to do this 20-questions style."

[Miriam Bell]

"First I thought somebody who needs me, relies on me I guess. That seemed... easy? You like a firm hand and I thought that could be something but I kept... fiddling with your head to fine-tune it I guess but I just ended up getting annoyed with you. Or with the needy version I turned you into I guess. I dragged you out into the nightlife a couple times, as arm-candy mostly and that went... fine I guess but it felt rote? Like I was just trying to right that time things went awry at the club and you decided to become professional lifestock. I..." she clears her throat to buy herself some time to steel herself. "...cried on your shoulder a couple time but the only time that didn't feel embarrassing was when I focused on the fact you wouldn't remember anyway."

"Bloody hell, if there was something I wanted or needed shouldn't that be easy to turn you into? I just want a connection. I want to feel... loved." Her voice is suddenly very small and a shadow falls across the room from where the walls are slowly twisting themselves into the outside facades of buildings. The black shine of the piano turns to the chrome of a car, the propped open piano cover contracting itself violently into a crumpled hood, smoking engine pieces underneath still sputtering out notes somehow. "And like I could still love somebody in return."

[Will Stanton]

"You'll never love someone like her," Will said, quietly, revving the engine on the keyboard. "And no one will ever love you like she did. And...chasing that high is what causes the frustration, I'd imagine. Because you weren't trying to turn me into a needy version of me, were you. You said it yourself -- you tried to turn me into her. I can do many things, but I can't replace her.

We have a weird connection. But it has to be unique between us -- not you and Norma. Not me and Melpomene. Something different. Otherwise, we're clawing after something that's only going to let us down, in the end."

[Miriam Bell]

"I did work myself up to it." she nods, jaw clenched as she forces some of the manifestations back. "And I don't want a replacement. Not really. It's just the..." she swallows hard and forces her voice to go flat to be able to get this out at all.

"It's the only context I have. The only time I felt something so unconditional and mutual."

[Will Stanton]

Will thought for a moment.

"How were you the first time you made me give you a piano lesson. You hit that song right on the first go?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Obviously and you can't prove otherwise." When in doubt, deflect with sarcastic humor. "But the other first time, the one that happened before that, no, not so much..."

[Will Stanton]

"So. You need to practice. And when things go wrong, you can learn from them. You've got to try something new. Take what works, and discard the rest.

And since you're not stuck in a loop this time, you can have feedback from the other side. You said what you were trying wasn't working? Well, you were left on your own to figure out why, because I reset to the same position day after day after day. You were stumbling blind, and while you may have found a few pearls that way, you never really got the feedback from this end why something wasn't working, yeah? That's why you kept coming back to me for lessons, so I could tell you what you were doing wrong and how to correct them. And so you could tell me what you wanted, and I could show you. Without it being a two way street, you're lost."

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm not taking remedial relationship lessons. That sounds somehow worse than therapy. Can't you just get Sam to unfuck my head in an afternoon?" she snarks, which is a pretty good indicator that Will has hewn close to the truth and she damn well knows it.

[Will Stanton]

"Sorry; I don't have telepathic powers OR control over baby war goddesses. If you want us to be a thing, you're going to have to do this the hard way.

You're kind of down to communication or trial-and-error. Probably both, honestly. And if you don't want to communicate by, y'know, talking, we'll just have to figure something else out."

[Miriam Bell]

"Truly terrible. How do you even flirt with somebody who knows your mysterious brooding is simply to cover up all the hurt and pain. Maybe I could fetch one of you from the mirror who's fond of me without knowing all the awful banalities of my trauma?" she asks with a pained smile that makes it clear that she's aware of how pointless that would be.

[Will Stanton]

"Sorry, you spend too much time brooding in front of mirrors for that to be a workable alternative. Best I can do is metaphorical punching bag to deal with said trauma without actually dealing with it," he deadpanned.

[Miriam Bell]

"Fine." she scrunches up her face. "But if you're going to make me work on my issues then you can at least do so in a cute dress."

[Will Stanton]

"Hrmm," Will said, with a smirk. "Looking for carrots, not sticks? Well, I suppose I can oblige," he laughed, as his clothes rippled and vanished for a moment, giving a flash of bare skin on the hybrid piano bench-car hood before a red skater dress formed it's way around his frame.

"While you need me to be human...or humanish, I suppose...I can do dresses," he acknowledged, with a nod.

[Miriam Bell]

"Carrots all the way, yes. You can have the stick." she smirks but doesn't quite manage to hide the fondness creeping onto her face.

[Will Stanton]

"You said you kept fiddling to fine-tune things. Never quite worked out? Was this bashing your head at a wall over and over again, or something more...fundamental?" he asked, sliding a little bit over on the piano bench as he continued to play.