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[jacksonian]

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[keep_nothing]

He's like a child testing out the limits of someone he just met, how far he can push them. Don't let him pull your pigtails.

[jacksonian]

[ He stares at her cluelessly. A side-effect of having a childhood like his childhood: you miss out on little-kid culture. And any and all descriptions of what girls do with their hair. ]

My...pig-tail...?

[keep_nothing]

Oh. It's a constructed schoolyard social fiction. Boy pulling on a girl's hair to get her attention when the boy likes the girl and wants to hide the fact he likes her.

[ She waves it off. ]

[jacksonian]

[ A knell of dread pounds through him. He draws back a bit. It shouldn't have occurred to him, of course - what does it make him, that this even occurs to him - but how many times had Galen described the Vor - and the Vorkosigans particularly - as incestuous perverts, sodomites lusting after their own families? So, a little shakily, he says - ]

You don't mean...like. In that sense. Do you?

[ And, also, because there are some clones made for that purpose. He knows that, too. Not in Bharaputra's labs, usually, but in Ryoval's. It's hard to imagine anyone coveting this face that he hates so much, but... ]

[keep_nothing]

What—oh, God no. No, Mark, not like that. I meant more that Miles like to poke at things he wants to know better.

[jacksonian]

Oh.

[ Relief and shame bloom through him in equal amounts. He's embarrassed that he even thought - But grateful, beyond grateful, that that's not it. That it's innocent. Just uncomplicated family sentiment.

Uncomplicated. Right. Ha. There's a joke. ]

Sorry. Um - I guess I don't know him so well yet. So I don't know...

[ It's an awkward excuse, and sounds fake, but it's not completely untrue. He doesn't know Miles well. All he has is his training - training that's programmed him to think of the Vorkosigans as - well. As a group of perverts and tyrants. He sort of wishes that that was still how he thought of them. ]

[keep_nothing]

I suppose you wouldn't yet, considering.

... Would you like to?

[jacksonian]

[ He looks up, uncertainty mixed with something like fear on his face. Hesitantly: ]

I...I can't. He'd - want to get to know me back.

[keep_nothing]

[ Gently, ] Is that such a bad thing?

[jacksonian]

Yes. It is.

[keep_nothing]

Is it really? Why?

[jacksonian]

If I stay like this - just...Peter Kane - I have a shot of not being...

[ He looks down, trying to find a word for what he is. The best he can come up with is a small, exhausted: ]

Pathetic.

[ Because he knows. Even though his head had always been filled with that shit about how he's the savior of Komarr, about how he has this grand destiny, he know that this is all his life really has been. That's become all the more transparent the longer he's lived here. That it's all just...sad. ]

[keep_nothing]

Mark—Peter. [ She reaches for his hand again. ] You're not pathetic. Not now, not ever.

[jacksonian]

[ His mouth turns up in a miserable, bitter, ironic smile. He pulls his hand back, avoiding her touch this time. ]

Just a clone.

[keep_nothing]

Which still makes you a person. And my son.

[jacksonian]

[ He draws in a sharp breath, like he's been struck. Being called that so directly - it shakes him a bit. He looks down, closing his eyes.

What will I be once I betray you, Countess? ]

I just - don't want him to know.

[keep_nothing]

... All right. That's your choice.

[ But her hand is still outstretched on the table between them. ]

[jacksonian]

[ He looks up at her, and then slowly, tentatively, skittishly, he reaches out and touches her hand. Lightly, on the palm. And his eyes - an identical gray to hers - look up and meet hers. ]

Um...Yeah. Thanks.

[keep_nothing]

[ Her fingers fold over his hand, still warm, still welcoming. ]

Could I get to know you, Peter? Would you allow me to?

[jacksonian]

[ Shyly: ]

There's not much to know, lady.

[keep_nothing]

I'd still like to.