faces are hard.

[flagg]

It's a smile, and that's all I wanted. No need to be anxious! I like it fine. Didn't I promise you that? Haven't I been patient, haven't I been as good as I can be? I have. Waited loyal as a dead dog, and now you're back — so you see, it was right. It was very well done.

Now you should let me make some friends. We all like to have a good time.

Comments

SCREAMS oh my god it's flagg

[backtothebrink]

[Wow, dude, you're kind of unsettling. Don't mind the soldier giving you the stink-eye here.]

"Loyal as a dead dog"? Kinda mangled the metaphor there, buddy.

o helo :'3

[flagg]

Did I? Do you know how the dog died?

total Dark Tower fan here :3

[backtothebrink]

Depends. If it was rabid, you have to put it down. That's what happens to dangerous mutts. Do you know if that was the case?

well, a freezeframe high5 for YOU, then. 8)

[flagg]

No, no, no. This dog was run over by the train it last saw its owner get on. The owner died far from home and never returned to the train station, so it stayed there for years, until it, not the metaphor, was mangled. That's how loyal this dog was!

aaaw yeah highfive- wait, no, it might end badly >.>

[backtothebrink]

[Snort.] Nice try, but I've heard that story before. Dog died of old age, and they built a statue in its honor outside the train station. I've seen it, once, before enlisting. 'S nice.

frozen there forever maybe.

[flagg]

Only one dog in all the worlds, is there? You soldiers — such literalists. Do they beat it out of you in basic?

oh fine here /highfive

[backtothebrink]

Folklore, buddy, not literally. I guess I lost more of the soft edges running with the big dogs in the Project. But I can try to play it casual just this once. [Cough cough ahem.]

[dontcallmegeraldo]

[Well, this isn't at all awkward.]

. . . You don't really 'make friends', though. Y'just glamour and dazzle people too stupid to for their own good. So, why not crawl back t'where you came from.

[flagg]

Stuart, buddy! [Not that he expects Stuart to let him, but Flagg really does try to sling an arm around his shoulders, grinning madly.]

What you know about me couldn't fill a thimble, old friend. But it's nice to see you all the same. How's the good life in post-apocalypse America? How's the wife, how're the kids?

[dontcallmegeraldo]

[Watch as he scuddles away and doesn't let you come close to touching him.]

Prolly not, but it's not like you're tryin' to deny it, either.

[Stu smiles, completely without any kindness or humor.]

They're doing good, which is more than you can say for yours if I recall correctly.

[flagg]

[He's been bored, Stuart. He may very well enjoy chasing you around while humming the Benny Hill theme.]

And what wife and kids were those? Do you mean Nadine? Poor Nadine! Arranged marriages, I tell ya.

[dontcallmegeraldo]

[He is less than amused.]

Well, I have a feelin' you're not the easiest guy to live with.

[flagg]

A promise is a promise, Stu. Not that you'd know anything about that, I suppose.

[dontcallmegeraldo]

[What was that about not knowing someone?]

If you say so.

[flagg]

I do! It's easy to keep the promises you want, Stu. Those promises are hardly promises at all. The hardest ones are the ones you make blindly, and then it turns out you don't want to keep them. And then you just don't know if, in your heart, you knew it was going to be a lie. You had the best of intentions, Stuart Redman. It was a promise meant well, a promise you shouldn't have had to make, but a promise broken nonetheless.

I'm sure it doesn't weigh heavy on you. A man's got to do what a man's got to do.

[dontcallmegeraldo]

Right. I'm sure you'd know all about promises, and breaking them don't you?

But I don't guess they weigh heavy on you do they? I don't think anything really bothers you.

[flagg]

I keep them all — to the very last letter. But even if I didn't, why should I feel bad? I make no claim to morals. I am what I am, and I don't change, unlike you, and our buddy Larry, and even dear old Harold.

[dontcallmegeraldo]

Sort of the point I was getting at. A promise made with the best intentions even if broken, isn't half as bad as a promise made and kept, if the intentions weren't entirely clear. I'm fairly sure those you've made promises to believed that you had their interests in mind, not just your own.

[Why do I fail at worrrrrrrrrrrrds?]

[flagg]

It'd sure be nice if that were true, wouldn't it? The idea that I trick people into doing things that they consider immoral and wrong? That good intentions don't pave the road to hell? Ah, but if you'd asked Harold, if you'd ever had a single, real conversation, you'd know.

[dontcallmegeraldo]

Now, that wasn't my fault. Harold...Made it fairly clear early on he didn't trust me, maybe he was right to, I can't say I never tried to talk to him man to man.

[But that's what go him in to trouble in the first place isn't it? A gentleman's conversation...]

No, the idea is that you trick immoral people into doing things while misleading them to believe that you are looking out for them. That's what's wrong.