incomingchoppers | IC INBOX

He scratches the back of his head, disordering his hair even more than usual.
"Look," he tries, "I'm just saying that if having some other sweetheart was gonna make her do that ..."

(That like everyone else does stings more than he would have expected. People from Radar's home must be damn fools if that's happened to him enough that he expects it.)

Without intending to at all, he changes what he was going to say. "Can I tell you about something that happened with me one time?"

Radar's brow knits.

"'Course," he says. "Sure."

"So I know you know about the ship," he says, "but I don't really remember, did I tell you anything about the fairy castle where I was before the ship?"

He moves to sit down on an upturned crate, and picks up a couple pieces of discarded straw, mostly just to have something to fiddle with in his hands.

Radar looks a bit shifty. (And has the good grace to look a bit guilty, too.)

"You didn't say nothing, but, uh... I overheard a little. You know." He gestures toward one of his ears. "On accident."

"Oh," he says, and "uh."

And of course immediately into his mind leap half a dozen vivid memories guaranteed to be at least a little embarrassing to him, or to Radar, or both. He does his best to yank the curtain closed on them, and focuses on what he had in mind to say.

"So there was, um. This girl. Completely gorgeous, sweet to everyone. She saved Max's life one time, when he got hurt, and ... I was there, that's sort of how I met her."

(He isn't trying to picture her for Radar's benefit, but nonetheless there's an image in his mind: a delicate heart-shaped face, long ivory hair tucked behind pointed ears, deep blue skin with paler tracery along its curves, lights dancing along the lines as she smiles.)

To Radar's credit, he doesn't go quite as red as he would've before he spent a week in the VIP suites with Dahlia. But he does avert his eyes pretty fast like that'll stop him from hearing the sudden slideshow popping up in Edgar's mind, and makes a small strangled noise that he quickly turns into a cough.

"Sorry," he mutters before Edgar goes on. He probably just shouldn't've said anything about overhearing stuff, huh. Oh well. MOVING ON. Pretty girl at the fairy castle, sweet as anything, knew both Edgar and Max, and...

Oh. Yeah, she really does look like a heck of a girl.

"She sounds real swell," he says, softly.

"I was gone on her for a while. And I thought, next chance I got I'd see if maybe she was interested. Cept I guess I din't move fast enough, and before I got the chance to try, I found out she was with somebody else."

This long after, it's easier not to feel the selfish hurt of that moment.

"And when we did talk after that, at a party, she said she was hoping we could still be friends. And that she'd still go to bed with me, if I wanted."

Huh. Radar listens, rapt, doing his best not to listen so hard he hears the rest of the story before Edgar finishes telling it.

"So what happened?"

"It felt weird. And I couldn't figure out why it felt weird, cause like -- there were other people there with the same kind of arrangement, right? Like they were together, committed --"

(He cannot prevent Max's face from shining in his mind right there, or two other closely associated faces: a young man with longish blond hair and a laughing grin, a person with short-cropped dark hair and a face both delicate and strong. He misses them so damn much.)

" -- and they'd all of them gone to bed with me one time or other, so what was different? And then I thought, like ... maybe what's different is I knew they wanted to, and weren't just asking cause I wanted to."

He twists the bit of straw in his hand, starts coiling it around one finger, grimaces, and stops.

"So I asked her was that it, was it something she wanted or just something she thought I wanted. And she din't know." He breathes out. "Never thought about it. Kind of upset her when she did."

"Oh."

It's soft. Not quite understanding, but... close. Some of it is just Radar trying to puzzle through the twists and turns of dating or sleeping with that many people at once (honestly, it still feels a little funny, everyone being okay with their sweethearts all tangled up like that). Some, too, is hearing that familiar, aching pang of someone who should be there and just isn't anymore, like shouting into a cave and never hearing the echo come back.

And then there's what Edgar's really trying to say. The important bit, the piece Radar has to listen to the hardest once he's filtered out all the rest of it.

"So..." Cautious. "You thought she was just doing it to be nice. And she got mad 'cause she was thinking the whole time that you were a great guy and she really did wanna, um -- ?"

Edgar shakes his head. "Other way around, kind of. She got upset cause she was thinking I was nice and she should do what I wanted, and din't think at all about what she wanted till I asked. And then she din't know what to answer."

A sigh. "I'm just saying ... I don't think Dahlia's the kind of girl who'd go with someone just cause she thought she should, if she din't really want to. And I think if she was, you could tell."

Radar sighs. It's long, and quiet, and earns him a briefly concerned glance from Bandit before she goes back to washing one paw.

"I hope so." Just as quiet. "I just worry, is all. I, I really like her. More than I think I ever liked a girl before -- even Linda Sue. And it's not like I wanna be jealous of Laios either, you know? I just... don't wanna mess this up."

"Well, can't say I know for sure how not to mess things up," sighs Edgar, "otherwise I'd tell you. But ... I dunno, just, maybe don't decide in advance she's gonna drop you?"

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "I'll try."

Way easier said than done, but. Radar's done harder things than this, right? Tricking his brain into really believing it when Dahlia says she wants to stick around -- no way that's tougher than a big push hitting the 4077th. Right?

Maybe.

But when he says, "Thanks, Edgar," it's with a full and earnest sincerity. "I mean it. I don't got a lot of people I can talk to this stuff about anymore."

He shrugs, pleased and oddly a little embarrassed, and gives Radar a grin. "Anytime, yeah? 'S gonna be fine."

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