Ford wasn't sure why it was so hard for her to believe that someone would enjoy her company, and he felt the urge to say something more on that point, to reassure her or bolster her confidence. He could tell her that she was interesting and witty, even if she was a bit unconventional, and that the way she responded with such obvious and keen interest made her easy to talk to long after they'd exhausted the typical veins of small talk. He could tell her that the way she tilted her head when she was thinking something through was enrapturing, particularly when it made one stray lock of hair slip out from behind her ear and curl towards her shoulder. There was a poem hidden there, in the graceful swoop of skin from her collarbone up along her neck to her earlobe, and the way the single lock of dark hair danced in the air above it, but Ford wasn't enough of a poet to draw it out. Tycho could have done it.
This ground his thoughts to a halt and stopped him from saying anything to affirm what good company she was, because you aren't in love with her you're not in love with her you're not. He had to remember that. She was good company, that was true, and he knew that because he'd thought that after he met her the first time, and he had not been dealing with this fake infatuation then. He didn't trust himself to say anything, though, because now whatever reasons he'd had for enjoying her company were all mixed up with what he was feeling now, and he couldn't trust himself to decipher which were real things that he'd thought and felt and which ones were the product of — whatever it was he was going through.
He wondered very briefly if he ought to tell her what was going on — if he could maybe trust her to help him discern reality from fiction the way he'd trusted Tycho to watch over him at the Halloween masque. At the very least, it might provide an excuse for anything he said that was... strange. He discarded the thought when it occurred to him that she might already know — because if this was some sort of love potion or something, the list of people who might want to slip it to him was relatively small. Surely she wouldn't do something like that, though? It didn't fit at all with his mental idea of her — but then again, his mental idea of her was notably untrustworthy at the moment. But she wasn't acting like someone who was keen to take advantage — and if her end game was to get him to propose to her, or something, that wouldn't actually work out all that well for her in the end. Not that she had any reason to know that.
She'd asked him a question. He blinked and realized he'd been watching the skin along her shoulder and her neck for longer than was reasonable. "Oh, uh," he said, rolling the cigarette in his fingers so that he had another excuse to put off smoking it. "It depends on what you want from them. If you're trying to really get to know someone, start with questions. People will talk more about themselves than they'll be willing to listen. And then when you say something you can try and make it something relevant, that they might care about."
This ground his thoughts to a halt and stopped him from saying anything to affirm what good company she was, because you aren't in love with her you're not in love with her you're not. He had to remember that. She was good company, that was true, and he knew that because he'd thought that after he met her the first time, and he had not been dealing with this fake infatuation then. He didn't trust himself to say anything, though, because now whatever reasons he'd had for enjoying her company were all mixed up with what he was feeling now, and he couldn't trust himself to decipher which were real things that he'd thought and felt and which ones were the product of — whatever it was he was going through.
He wondered very briefly if he ought to tell her what was going on — if he could maybe trust her to help him discern reality from fiction the way he'd trusted Tycho to watch over him at the Halloween masque. At the very least, it might provide an excuse for anything he said that was... strange. He discarded the thought when it occurred to him that she might already know — because if this was some sort of love potion or something, the list of people who might want to slip it to him was relatively small. Surely she wouldn't do something like that, though? It didn't fit at all with his mental idea of her — but then again, his mental idea of her was notably untrustworthy at the moment. But she wasn't acting like someone who was keen to take advantage — and if her end game was to get him to propose to her, or something, that wouldn't actually work out all that well for her in the end. Not that she had any reason to know that.
She'd asked him a question. He blinked and realized he'd been watching the skin along her shoulder and her neck for longer than was reasonable. "Oh, uh," he said, rolling the cigarette in his fingers so that he had another excuse to put off smoking it. "It depends on what you want from them. If you're trying to really get to know someone, start with questions. People will talk more about themselves than they'll be willing to listen. And then when you say something you can try and make it something relevant, that they might care about."
Set by Lady!