[I do love London. It's a fabulous city. The first time I came here it felt like home right away. I highly recommend it for a visit. The whole vibe of the place is wonderful.]
Sitting back in his own chair, Aurus gave Charles another one of his appraising looks--it was a smile, but the sort of smile that held just a bit of mirth behind it. Gentle mirth, but also somewhat pointed.
"You are the diplomat aren't you--that was all very tactfully put. Very carefully hypothetical too." It wasn't lost on Aurus for a moment that Charles had distanced himself from taking up any specific position in this field of 'ones' and 'theys.'
"One might almost imagine that a man who holds such views on the import of measured and restrained judgements has had some personal experience that he's keen to abstract the wisdom from without having to admit his own place in the matter." He was teasing Charles a here, true, but warmly, affectionately. And in his way he was also subtly telling him something--another in a line of hints he'd begun to drop, but which Charles, either from deliberate avoidance or because it had gotten a bit muddled in the moments of flirtation--seemed not quite to have noticed yet.
What he was trying to alert him to was this: he did not mean to accept an arrangement where he allowed Charles unfettered access and intimacy while Charles held himself at a careful emotional distance, risking nothing. Ironically, while Charles was trying to avoid revealing things, he was beginning to show Aurus more and more clearly what the contours of his walls and the shape of his emotional guardedness were.
And as a result, Aurus was starting see that Charles was not, in fact, as masterfully composed and wholly at ease with himself as he at first gave the appearance of being.
no subject
Sitting back in his own chair, Aurus gave Charles another one of his appraising looks--it was a smile, but the sort of smile that held just a bit of mirth behind it. Gentle mirth, but also somewhat pointed.
"You are the diplomat aren't you--that was all very tactfully put. Very carefully hypothetical too." It wasn't lost on Aurus for a moment that Charles had distanced himself from taking up any specific position in this field of 'ones' and 'theys.'
"One might almost imagine that a man who holds such views on the import of measured and restrained judgements has had some personal experience that he's keen to abstract the wisdom from without having to admit his own place in the matter." He was teasing Charles a here, true, but warmly, affectionately. And in his way he was also subtly telling him something--another in a line of hints he'd begun to drop, but which Charles, either from deliberate avoidance or because it had gotten a bit muddled in the moments of flirtation--seemed not quite to have noticed yet.
What he was trying to alert him to was this: he did not mean to accept an arrangement where he allowed Charles unfettered access and intimacy while Charles held himself at a careful emotional distance, risking nothing. Ironically, while Charles was trying to avoid revealing things, he was beginning to show Aurus more and more clearly what the contours of his walls and the shape of his emotional guardedness were.
And as a result, Aurus was starting see that Charles was not, in fact, as masterfully composed and wholly at ease with himself as he at first gave the appearance of being.