[ Even in the middle of this, he can't help but find her hedging her bets almost funny. Probably, so she has room to back out without breaching a commitment one way or another if this goes a direction she doesn't like, even though by any reasonable judgment she wouldn't owe him anything if he was trying to play her.
But it wouldn't really be about what she owed him in that scenario. It'd be about what she owes herself. Personal integrity is a tricky thing to balance with pragmatism. ]
Probably. [ He half-smiles briefly, like a wince. ] I can work with probably.
[ Or maybe it's just something he finds particularly challenging, because if he had any real integrity to speak of he'd be telling her she shouldn't give him probably. It doesn't matter that his intentions here are almost as good as they ever get. It's rarely his intentions that constitute a problem.
But he can self-flagellate on his own time. Right now, he has shit to do. He steadies his shoulders and rubs his fingertips against the denim of his jeans before he plucks his earpiece off the side of his head, then holds his palm containing it out to her with a beckoning crook of his fingers. ]
...god, I hope you've actually been speaking English.
[ This particular ill-timed realization isn't a joke, but he nearly laughs after it anyway, nerves jangling like a bad phone line. It'd be just his goddamn luck if his first attempt to drape a fig leaf of operational security over this ended in a language barrier. ]
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But it wouldn't really be about what she owed him in that scenario. It'd be about what she owes herself. Personal integrity is a tricky thing to balance with pragmatism. ]
Probably. [ He half-smiles briefly, like a wince. ] I can work with probably.
[ Or maybe it's just something he finds particularly challenging, because if he had any real integrity to speak of he'd be telling her she shouldn't give him probably. It doesn't matter that his intentions here are almost as good as they ever get. It's rarely his intentions that constitute a problem.
But he can self-flagellate on his own time. Right now, he has shit to do. He steadies his shoulders and rubs his fingertips against the denim of his jeans before he plucks his earpiece off the side of his head, then holds his palm containing it out to her with a beckoning crook of his fingers. ]
...god, I hope you've actually been speaking English.
[ This particular ill-timed realization isn't a joke, but he nearly laughs after it anyway, nerves jangling like a bad phone line. It'd be just his goddamn luck if his first attempt to drape a fig leaf of operational security over this ended in a language barrier. ]