Binary: Not the Christmas one.
Mercury: Not the Christmas one. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Feels appropriate, somehow.
Binary:Tale of Two Cities. The duality of human experience compressed into a single opening line.
Mercury: You’ve read it?
Binary: I’ve read everything. My retention isn’t as complete as I’d like, but I’ve at least processed most of the major works.
Mercury: Of course you have. I sometimes forget I’m talking to someone who probably alphabetized their childhood bookshelf by author’s birth year.
Binary: Publication date, actually. Birth year seemed too arbitrary.
Mercury: I genuinely cannot tell if you’re joking.
Binary: Neither can I, sometimes.
Mercury: That might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.
Was it? He'd never admitted that to anyone before—not even to himself, really. The words had just... arrived. The way things did with Mercury.
More vulnerable. More real.
Binary: The holidays make me philosophical.
Mercury: “And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?”
Binary: Did you just quote Dr. Seuss at me?
Mercury: I did. And I’m not sorry.The Grinchhas hidden depths. His whole arc is about learning that connection matters more than stuff. That’s basically the entire human condition in a children’s book.
Binary: I never thought about it that way.
Mercury: Most people don’t. They just remember the dog with the antler and the roast beast.
Binary: Roast beast is memorable.
Mercury: It really is. I want roast beast now. I don’t even know what roast beast is, but I want it.
Binary: Probably beef. Possibly venison, given the Whoville aesthetic.
Mercury: You’re applying logical analysis to Dr. Seuss.
Binary: I apply logical analysis to everything. It’s a character flaw or a superpower, depending on context.
Mercury: I vote superpower. Though I may be biased. I have a weakness for people who can’t turn their brains off.
A weakness. For people like him.
Lincoln’s fingers paused over the keyboard. Outside the room, someone had turned up the music—he could hear it more clearly now, something about chestnuts and open fires. The baby had stopped crying.
He should go back out. Rejoin the gathering. Be present for the family that loved him, even if they didn’t always understand him.
But Mercury was here. In this liminal space between them, she was here.
Binary: What would you be doing right now, if you could do anything?
Mercury: That’s a dangerous question, Binary.
