(Here’s the serious Wild Mass Guessing one, very possibly about to be murdered by Sunless Skies, RIP)
“I did receive your proposal, my dear,” drawls the Old Man, stirring his void-black coffee for what feels like the millionth time, “but perhaps you’ll forgive me for demurring while we’re face to face - as they will say, the medium is the message, and even in stunned silence your courier spoke louder than years of correspondence...you told me something with this choice, yes, but also the choice before, not so easily buried by additional experiments...since you picked this fool yet again, you can wait a little longer, can’t you?”
The Solitary Scientist blinks at his inconstant companion with eyes whiter and waterier than his own forgotten latte, hands quaking from excessive caffeine and days, months, eternities of expectation - perhaps he deserves the agony, for drinking from different cups, for indulging unusual tastes in darker establishments then assuming he could scamper back to the welcoming light of Vienna - but thirst sharper than hunger urged his latest return, and he is past the point of shame for his treacheries, because no judgement could be worse than another minute of watching the Old Man pour too much cream into what they had once brewed together.
The Old Man takes a sip without pleasure and utters the wrong three words, like he always does, damning in dismissiveness: “You’ll survive, Sol.”
no subject
“I did receive your proposal, my dear,” drawls the Old Man, stirring his void-black coffee for what feels like the millionth time, “but perhaps you’ll forgive me for demurring while we’re face to face - as they will say, the medium is the message, and even in stunned silence your courier spoke louder than years of correspondence...you told me something with this choice, yes, but also the choice before, not so easily buried by additional experiments...since you picked this fool yet again, you can wait a little longer, can’t you?”
The Solitary Scientist blinks at his inconstant companion with eyes whiter and waterier than his own forgotten latte, hands quaking from excessive caffeine and days, months, eternities of expectation - perhaps he deserves the agony, for drinking from different cups, for indulging unusual tastes in darker establishments then assuming he could scamper back to the welcoming light of Vienna - but thirst sharper than hunger urged his latest return, and he is past the point of shame for his treacheries, because no judgement could be worse than another minute of watching the Old Man pour too much cream into what they had once brewed together.
The Old Man takes a sip without pleasure and utters the wrong three words, like he always does, damning in dismissiveness: “You’ll survive, Sol.”