there is room here to expand

[cross_and_bow]

When Juliet leaves the party, she goes to meet the new Jarvis.

She knocks, to be polite.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

"I guess that makes some more sense." She sighs, she squeezes his hand. "I want you to be fine. I really, really want it, and I guess if you can live with being like this then I don't need to lose metaphorical sleep over it but I'm going to keep thinking." She lets out a soft, sad chuckle. "Maybe one day we'll run into another one of you who eventually figured it out."

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock hugs her.

"Wouldn't that be something."

[cross_and_bow]

"It would! I mean, a surprising number of problems have been solved with alt-finding, up to and including death. I wouldn't put it past the multiverse to eventually hand you a solution."

[eversomuchfun]

He laughs.

[cross_and_bow]

"I have very little idea what that'd look like," she muses. "I wonder if you'd have been it, if you had a while without your soul and with all your people."

[eversomuchfun]

"I bet I would."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella squeezes him.

"Did you even notice the self-hatred problem before Steph appeared?"

[eversomuchfun]

"It was less obvious. I didn't give it much thought."

[cross_and_bow]

"I am having a complete failure of imagination about failing to notice self-loathing."

[eversomuchfun]

"I don't go around consciously observing what a terrible waste of a soul I am. I just... quietly neglect to value myself. The merge did fix most of the higher-level symptoms."

[cross_and_bow]

"Is there," Bella sighs, "any point to arguing with you when you utter worrisome phrases like 'terrible waste of a soul'?"

[eversomuchfun]

"File it under 'backhanded non-hyperbole'," he says. "It describes my emotional reality, not my actual beliefs."

[cross_and_bow]

"And as far as I know none of us have managed to teach anybody else how to make those things match when they want, like we can, so it could easily be a waste of effort to try."

[eversomuchfun]

"I actually have practiced a kind of self-modification, but it was demonstrably unable to get me out of this fucking fix."

[cross_and_bow]

"How does yours work? Besides 'evidently not well enough'."

[eversomuchfun]

"Worked," he says. "Past tense. I can't imagine doing it again."

[cross_and_bow]

"Speaking of turning oneself into Sherlock Holmes, does Strat have this problem?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Strat has slightly less of this problem, but Downside brought it out in full."

[cross_and_bow]

"Downside fucks with people. I have a vague horrified curiosity about how well Shell could ever have recovered if she hadn't folded back in to her liveling counterpart."

[eversomuchfun]

"Downside does fuck with people. Well, it did. Hopefully it now does it less."

[cross_and_bow]

"We're working on it - luckily we only lost a couple of days there - but yeah."

[eversomuchfun]

[cross_and_bow]

"I love you," murmurs Bella. "I wish you could love you too."

[eversomuchfun]

"I used to love me," he sighs. "But I do love you. And Tony. And the various incarnations of Jarvis."

[cross_and_bow]

"If we don't figure out a nice well-rounded fix soon I guess I'll talk to Shell Bell, but I suspect the answer to how Shell Bell deals with it is just "she occasionally despairs, and also she didn't ever get used to hers being any other way'," sighs Bella.