nevermore_logs | (no subject)

WHO: Greed & Zoe
WHEN: Backdated last Tuesday night
WHERE: Zoe's apartment
WHAT: Can we talk?
WARNING: Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

The apartment was dark, the only light on in Zoe's bedroom, her door closed. The place was too empty and quiet and she tried to convince herself that she wanted to be alone right now anyways. Zoe was in her jammies of PJ bottoms and a tank top and she sat on her messy bed with a book in her lap, only occasionally stopping to make notes. She was trying to keep her mind off things. She'd turned her phone off since the day before, since.. it happened. She didn't know what would be worse, hearing Greed's excuse or finding out she didn't have any messages from him at all. Both scenarios were pretty bad so she just left the blasted thing off.

Her morning with Patience had drained her and left her more confused and upset than ever. She tried hard to not let what he was saying get to her but she knew it did. And she couldn't even ask Greed about it because he was God knows where.. who cared, he wasn't here. She felt like an idiot.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He didn't respond to her touch, but he knew it was there. "She was so pretty," he said it possessively, almost in an eerie way, especially when the corners of his mouth turned up. "Gorgeous eyes, silvery blonde hair." He'd had to have her. He'd picked her. "I'd been on my own for years," so long from Lust and Gluttony that he craved--no demanded companionship."She had nothing. I convinced her to leave with me. I made her love me."

It was a little.. disturbing listening to him, for more reasons than one. But she stayed with him, "Why her...? There are lots of beautiful girls, she must have been something special. How did you meet her?"

There was one other thing that he said that didn't sit well with her but she chose to not say anything right now.

"She was everything I wasn't. Honest. Sweet. She could love and I knew it. Once her family was out if the picture, she could be with me." Shouldn't a Sin know what it was like, especially a Sin that needed everything. "I tried...I tried...I tried...I TRIED." His voice got heavier, darker even and he pulled away, running his hands over his face. He could feel tears prick his eyes, but Sins weren't built to cry--but he still could. Just as he had that day.

Zoe was a little scared but she was incredibly worried about Greed. After a moment, she moved in front of him and slowly took his hands in hers, "C'mere.." she said softly and pulled him the couple of feet to the sofa so they could sit for this conversation.

She dropped one hand but kept one and asked him again in that soft voice, "Tried what..?"

"To figure it out. To have what I don't have...the thing only Virtues know." He clenched his empty hand as if he'd grabbed something and was clinging to it. "Love." He'd actually played it so well he'd started to believe he could. "And then she jumped. Chose death over me," and he was angry. He was angry he hadn't made the choice to let go first.

Zoe put her hand over Greed's clenched fist, "She didn't choose death over you.. she chose her freedom." she gently worked on prying his hand open, but very gently, not using force at all, "Virtues, from what I've seen, don't know love any better than sins. And you wanna know a secret?" she leaned in conspiratorially, "Us humans still haven't figured it all out either."

She still worked on his hand and said, "Chance.. what Josie had for you," and she knew that it could be difficult to hear but it had to be said, "That wasn't love. Love is a choice.. but it's not a choice." She frowned, she didn't know how to describe it and wasn't explaining it very well. She looked at the cookies on a plate on the table. She'd been baking earlier. She let go of his hand that she'd been working on and grabbed a cookie and showed it to him, "I have this cookie. And you want this cookie, okay?" she took a small bite out of it to show it was hers. "If you trick me into giving you this cookie, if you force me to give it to you, scare me into giving it to you, you'll have it. This cookie will be yours. But it won't taste as good or as real.." she took the cookie and slowly placed it in his open hand, "..as me giving you the cookie.. because I want you to have it." she had no idea if that made sense to him at all but she hoped it did.

She made her explanation simple, like a child's explanation. It was effective because ninety percent of the time Greed played that role. He watched that cookie like a lifeline. It didn't make him feel any better because he would never not want to have even what he wasn't allowed. But she had it. She had him because she wanted him.

"You want me all to yourself and I didn't do it." That was why he felt nauseated when she kissed him. It hit like a truck to feel unwanted like Josie had by the end. "She killed herself." It as decades on top of decades of unspoken hurt. He for the first time knew he'd caused it. It wasn't Patience. It was him.

Well it was some small relief to hear that he didn't force her to want him. Small relief because it meant her insanity in caring for him was her own and she could blame no one else.

Zoe put an arm around him and wished she could tell him it wasn't his fault but it was. "She did it to get her will back. She wanted to make a choice that was hers." which is what she'd tried to tell Patience, Josie didn't get a choice in being with Greed, he forced her and when she had a chance, she ran. Greed had given Zoe the choice, and because of that, she chose to stay.

"I know it's hard. Trust me, I know what it's like to want something so badly and know you're not going to get it. It sucks and it makes us do crazy things because we just want that suckiness to go away. We want to believe that maybe we can have it." she was not being very articulate at all..

This honesty thing gave him back more than he'd imagined. It was a helpful trick, confiding in others with this result. "I don't always force, sometimes its just a seed of an idea, a whisper, a touch, but you saw me first. You opened the door before I did."

He shook his head. "Your want is not like my want. I would kill myself to get what I wanted." He would run himself ragged and still keep going. Once his grip was around it, there was no giving it back unless he absolutely didn't want it anymore...and that just didn't happen very often. Humans were toys, they broke after a little bit of rough play. "Josie wore out...but I held on tight."

Honesty really was the best trick that wasn't a trick. Zoe was surprised but happy to hear that Greed hadn't influenced her even a whisper and she couldn't help but smile a little.

She rubbed his arm and said slowly, "Did Josie wear out... because you held on tight?" thinking back to Patience saying he was controlling and one other thing, "Freddie said you take without giving back.." and if Greed had forced Josie then it was understandably that the girl was simply sucked dry.

"I wanted to keep her longer. I liked her. I think..." Not even Lust knew this, "I think I'd started to believe I could love so I kept on holding on. When she jumped...I..." He'd run. He'd been so stunned all he could do was run and drown himself in his own hole.

Zoe stayed close to him and kept rubbing his arm, it was heartbreaking to hear him. "You what..?" she gently asked. She had a feeling that he really hadn't even admitted these things to himself.

"I was lost. So I ran." He hadn't felt that before. So strongly. "I'd been away too long." Years upon years upon years without Lust or Glutt. He kept his eyes forward. "I hurt a lot of people then." He'd killed, he was a Sin, it didn't mean he always went that route. Josie had been different. Greed had been angry. "I'm not bad am I?"

Part of Zoe understood why Patience had been so horrified at her liking Greed of her own will. She.. didn't blame him. Maybe if it was someone else, she'd be judging them too. She was quiet and as much as she wanted to tell him no he wasn't, she wouldn't lie. "You're... not evil." which is what Patience had implied. "You've done bad things but.. I think 'Greed' is what you are, not.. who you are." because when she looked at him, she didn't see a Sin. She saw a person. And she wondered if maybe Greed never saw himself as a person.. if he only saw his namesake.