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[weboftime]

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[wishiwasatree]

You're a fucking liar.

[weboftime]

He hated me, Trixie. Why would I be upset that he's gone?

[He means it to sound like an accusation. It doesn't. It sounds like an actual question.]

[wishiwasatree]

But did you hate him?

[weboftime]

The people I hate are mostly dead.

[wishiwasatree]

You didn’t answer me.

[weboftime]

You're right. I didn't.

[wishiwasatree]

[He infuriates her, so at his not-answer she stalks down to his room with a spray bottle of water in hand and pounds on his door.]

[weboftime]

He answers the door, opening it with a sigh.

[wishiwasatree]

As soon as Henry opens the door Trixie sprays him in the face with the water.

"Stop fucking shutting down!"

[weboftime]

He blinks, stepping back in pure shock, and reaches up to wipe his face.

"What - why did you do that?"

[wishiwasatree]

"Because you piss me off and this is better than smacking you," she grumbles, pushing past him.

[weboftime]

He steps out of the way and closes the door behind her. "I don't see what the problem is."

[wishiwasatree]

She rounds on him. "Did you hate him, Henry?"

[weboftime]

He shakes his head. "No," he tells her, keeping the emotion from his voice. "No, I did not hate him."

[wishiwasatree]

"And you're broken up about him being gone."

She wants the whole admission from him. She doesn't level the spray bottle at his face, but her finger's on the trigger.

[weboftime]

He eyes that spray bottle. "I'm not 'torn up' about him," he insists, then holds up a hand to stop that potential weapon. "It's more complicated than that."

[wishiwasatree]

"Then tell me. Fucking tell me anything, because I never understood and it's driving me up a fucking wall."

[weboftime]

He stares away from her, watching his spiders in their terrarium. "I took him over fully in the future. Dragged him through his own nightmares, time and time again. His worst memories on repeat while I controlled his body. At first, I simply wanted that back, but - then I liked being in his head. I told you that it was like a web - each of you are strings in it. When one of them snaps or breaks, I can feel it."

[wishiwasatree]

And why Billy enjoyed that, or continued to allow Henry in his head, is absolutely beyond her.

Well. That isn't completely true. It's a lot like her and Swearengen. He'd hurt her over and over again, but still she'd come crawling back to him.

Sometimes it was nice not to have to think for yourself.

"You liked what about it exactly?"

[weboftime]

"It makes me feel - " He pauses, trying to put it into words that make sense. "Grounded? Being alone in my head for so long when I knew that I could do more, that I should do more, was hard."

[wishiwasatree]

"Did he..." She screws up her face as she tries to put her concerns into words. "Did he talk to you in some way? Keep you company?"

[weboftime]

"I would talk to him sometimes," he admits. "When he would allow it. He talked back most of the time."

[wishiwasatree]

“So,” she mutters, rubbing her head a little with her free hand. “You weren’t alone when you had him. Not a friend, but — probably fairly fucking close for someone such as yourself.”

[weboftime]

"I suppose. If you'd like to call it that."

He keeps his eyes on the spiders. "Now it's only you and Dorian."

[wishiwasatree]

Not a friend, but not an enemy either. Just someone to call his own.

She sits on the edge of Henry's bed.

"You're lonely."