house atreides and allies group text

[terriblepurpose]

House Atreides


Allies


Shed? Heresy Hut


Questionable Mentor Containment Zone (Filter Name: HashbrownCobraKaiRules)

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Comments

[hearthebell]

Because I am uncommonly selfish, destructive and cruel, I believe that I do want that.

I would settle for taking him down a peg or two.

[terriblepurpose]

I don't think that's what you are.

I trust you. You've been more right about all of this than I've ever been.

Don't forget that I trust you.

[hearthebell]

I don't forget. In fact, I think of it often.

Sometimes, it's the truest thing I know.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul thinks of all the times he's given Lazarus reason to doubt him, all the times that the distance between them had seemed insurmountable. He presses his forehead to his knees with a deep, wounded relief, and the fire behind his closed eyes recedes.

Paul believes him.]

Good.

[hearthebell]

Can you also settle for taking him down a peg or two?

[terriblepurpose]

[How can he explain that he would settle for nothing from the man who once was his Teacher? That he had settled for it, for the sake of this world and the people in it, and that he now feels the unsettling in him like the low groan of a burning house about to collapse?]

I would. I will.

[He can't explain. Not like this. But he can settle, settle, into the security of Lazarus' sureness, this man who so often seems like he might be glass while always, when he needs to be, found to be steel.]

[hearthebell]

It's alright if you're not sure.

I know it's a lot to ask for.

[terriblepurpose]

I don't trust anyone by mistake, anymore.

I am sure about you. You're one of the only things I'm sure of.

That's because of you. Don't discount yourself like that. Not to me.

[hearthebell]

Your sureness matters to me.

I won't, then, if it's like that.

[Deserving this level of trust is, however, its own kind of pressure.]

[terriblepurpose]

[It's pressure Paul exerts knowingly, willing in his desperation to pull the levers he has within reach. It clouds the otherwise heady relief of reassurance.]

It's like that.

I should let you get back to work.

/wrap

[hearthebell]

It's important work.

Not more important, and I won't stop saying that.