[There are times that Kieren, for all his compassion and vulnerability, for all the warmth that draws Simon to him like a moth to flame, can be surprisingly cruel. The dismissal implicit in the words cut more than a knife would now. His stomach flips, but he forces himself to stay calm, even though it's just one more voice in the cacophony currently going on inside his head.
He's quiet for a long moment, trying to pick through all the noise. Warden, inmates, undead and living and living dead, him and Amy and Kieren and the Redeemed back home, the ULA... it's a huge mess, when he pulls back and looks at it again now. At the time, it had seemed fairly simple: do a job for a while, guard over someone, get the Rising he'd wanted and none of the loss he hadn't. In retrospect, though, why should it have been any easier than the Give Back scheme, or any other false promise? Why hadn't he questioned it more?
Because it had been important. That important.
He presses his lips to a thin line, then dares a glance back over at Kieren.]
[Spam]
He's quiet for a long moment, trying to pick through all the noise. Warden, inmates, undead and living and living dead, him and Amy and Kieren and the Redeemed back home, the ULA... it's a huge mess, when he pulls back and looks at it again now. At the time, it had seemed fairly simple: do a job for a while, guard over someone, get the Rising he'd wanted and none of the loss he hadn't. In retrospect, though, why should it have been any easier than the Give Back scheme, or any other false promise? Why hadn't he questioned it more?
Because it had been important. That important.
He presses his lips to a thin line, then dares a glance back over at Kieren.]
Anything else you think I need to know about?