[Relationship] A Short Walk of Shame

[Will Stanton]

"Well, don't worry.

I'll be sure to make plenty of popcorn."

[Miriam Bell]

"And here I thought you were predispositioned to be helpful." Miriam scoffs.

[Will Stanton]

"I've never had complaints to this point," Will said, mildly. "I think I was a great help."

[Miriam Bell]

"Almost suspiciously so, even considering two telepaths were involved..." she says, narrowing her eyes at Will.

[Will Stanton]

"I'm very good at what I do," Miriam!Will said, quietly, before taking a step backwards in the reflection, Miriam's standard reflection replacing her.

[Miriam Bell]

"Oh no, you don't get to be that cheeky and then slink away." Miriam says, stepping closer to the mirror and jabbing an accusatory finger at the smooth surface.

[Will Stanton]

Miriam's finger penetrated the surface, causing it to ripple and shimmer as she stuck her finger in. She could grab on to...something...behind the 'glass', if she so chose, and pull it out. Can't run away too much.

[Miriam Bell]

Her fingers close around whatever it is they've grabbed and pulls it partway out the mirror.

[Will Stanton]

...And finds herself holding a Will by her neck, dragging her out into the real world.

When you reach into the mirror and pull someone out, the form they take is directly related to what you need. How does that work? Some kind of telepath witchery? That's a question for a later date.

As for Miriam, what she wanted was answers. Someone who would answer her questions, and someone who would tell her the truth. So it may not be a shocking surprise that the way Will would interpret that was to come out as a wooden marionette, Pinocchio style, making it rather easy for Miriam to yank her out of the mirror entirely.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam blinks at the wooden puppet she pulls out of the mirror. She's somewhat used to thinking in metaphors from her telepathy, but Will's logic always takes a moment for her to round that extra corner of association.

"You're trying to hide something."

[Will Stanton]

"Yes," Will said, honestly, as she kicked a little in Miriam's grip. "The unvarnished truth isn't always the best option."

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm a telepath. No one knows that better than me. Sugarcoat it a little then."

[Will Stanton]

"You wondered how I was so good in bed," Will said, simply. "The answer is, well, this is not the first time I've been intimate with a Samantha McManus. Or a Miriam Bell, for that matter. I have some experience in these matters, and there are some things that are constants across the universes."

...That's sugar-coating it?

[Miriam Bell]

"That is beyond creepy, considering the... circumstances I imagine that happened in with my counterpart." Miriam says with bit of a grimace. Although it's not necessarily aimed at Will.

[Will Stanton]

"That is beyond creepy, considering the... circumstances I imagine that happened in with my counterpart." Miriam says with bit of a grimace. Although it's not necessarily aimed at Will.

"You're all fun-house reflections of what I know, which is why I didn't mention this; I don't mean to burden anyone more than I already have," Will continued, the truth still coming out. "But last night was very, very familiar, if a novel juxtoposition.

It's been millions of years since I was last intimate with the Morrigan. You have to understand, even watching her is a religious experience for me, quite literally. But when you brought me down there, and I could just let myself get lost as she overwhelmed all my senses...it's like I get disconnected from the world of the physical; an emotional resonance and amplifier that takes me away. She is a temple; it's a pilgrimage. It's also one of the few ways to shut me up.

...That was a joke," the puppet shrugged.

"As for Melpomene...she isn't you. Mentally. Emotionally. Morally. But physically? I became something of an expert on that, and, well, you are very, very familiar.

The circumstances were...what they were," Will said, still sugarcoating it. "Not the most pleasant nine months I've ever spent. They left their mark, for certain. But I didn't hate all of it; she made sure of that. Of course, she made sure of that so I would feel guilty about not hating it. She didn't always need telepathy to manipulate people -- though there was plenty of that, as well. It was all part of the plan to break me down to hurt other people; she didn't particularly mean to hurt me."

[Miriam Bell]

"I should have figured, but at the same time I'm... not sure what to make of this. It's a strange kind of violation of privacy. Just not by you but rather... the universe?"

[Will Stanton]

"I mean, you asked," Will said, shrugging her shoulders a bit. "Pandora and her box and all that.

I don't try to keep things from you just because I like being all mysterious and spooky," she added, as her nose grew by a couple centimeters.

[Miriam Bell]

"Oh bollocks. Everyone keeps secrets for reasons other than selflessly protecting others. I don't need your nose to tell me that." she says, flicking Will's nose with her ring finger. "But yes, I did ask and I do like making myself feel worse by second-guessing a good thing."

[Will Stanton]

"It was a good thing, wasn't it? And now we're both in the crosshairs of that angry werewolf."

[Miriam Bell]

"I've slapped a werewolf before. With you, no less."

[Will Stanton]

"Yeah, you did," Will nodded.

"Last night was better," she said, still telling the unvarnished truth.

[Miriam Bell]

"That's an understatement, even if it feels like a fluke."

[Will Stanton]

"You don't think Sam enjoyed your, erm. Date? Contest? Whatever you're calling it?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I haven't the foggiest clue. For all I know she might be taking her regrets out on whatever that alert was about." she says, naturally assuming the worst.

[Will Stanton]

"Her hangover, maybe," Will acknowledged. "But I don't think she seemed that unhappy with you last night?"

[Miriam Bell]

"That was last night. Who knows how she feels about it now. Or how much she even remembers."

[Will Stanton]

"You both were more or less out of it," Will agreed. Damn truthfulness!

[Miriam Bell]

"Not helping." she mutters.

[Will Stanton]

"Look, you got her into bed with you. That's difficult to do. So she must not have been entirely opposed to it. And if she doesn't remember, well, then you're even, right?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Yeah, no one has ever had any regrets about a drunk night out." she jokes. But also not.

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, I've had plenty of regrets," Will said, shaking her head. "But if she has regrets about this, that is in the end her own hangup. It doesn't have to be yours."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam huffs and places the Will-Puppet down on it's feet. "I'm beginning to regret thinking about this too much."

[Will Stanton]

The Will-puppet sagged in on herself on the floor, bending over a little unnaturally as Miriam let her go.

She bent her eyes up to look at Miriam, overthinking things, and came to a decision.

"You're right. Thinking was never your strong suit, anyway," she said, ignoring her nose growing a little longer.

[Miriam Bell]

"I've heard worse insults and better compliments." she smirks slightly, reaching down to prop Will up proper and not a crumpled mess.

[Will Stanton]

"I'm just saying," Will continued. "Maybe we should go down to the ScienceBros and see if they can't recreate Conduit's power switcheroo. You were much more tolerable as a washcloth."

[Miriam Bell]

"Like you could stand going back to being a regular person made of flesh and blood."

[Will Stanton]

"If it gets your dang brain to shut off, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," the puppet said, seriously.

The nose growing somewhat weakened the point.

[Miriam Bell]

"We've already determined something better to shut off my brain last night. And you do realize you're a terrible liar right now, yes?"

[Will Stanton]

"Well, if you're still worrying about it today rather than having your heart all-a-flutter, then maybe 'better' isn't the way to describe it," Will shrugged.

"And, frankly, I don't think I'm much worse of a liar now than in general."

[Miriam Bell]

"That's not... She's got her whole pack thing. This was just a nice fling."