"I don't know. I don't think he... I mean, look, I think he's not exactly interested in women himself. I want to believe that's going to make him be decent about the whole thing, but..."
He'd always suspected that about Bob, but of course he doesn't know for sure, doesn't have evidence, and can't possibly fathom destroying someone's life by telling a secret like that, even if someone did the same thing to him. Even if Bob told, even if he used it as some kind of blackmail, he's not sure he could turn around and return the favor. He just doesn't have it in him.
He imitates Ned's motion, covers his face with his hands, because he has to say the next part, but he doesn't want to. It comes out muffled. "I know he already told Peggy."
Decent? Ned doubts it. With a few, very rare, exceptions, he hasn't met many human beings who he'd classify as decent. Not when they find themselves in a position of power over others.
When Ginsberg says what he suspects about Bob, that changes matters, yes, but not necessarily for the better. If Bob were going to be decent about it he'd never have confronted Ginsberg about the drawings in the first place, would never have threatened to tell everyone, even if he was just looking for confirmation. Ned knows that if he somehow found out that another person had a secret, the way that he'd show his respect would be pretending never to know. That was his way of doing things.
"How do you know that?" he asks, heart sinking further.
He finally lifts his face out of his hands to respond to the question, because he can't keep speaking muffled sentences that're almost impossible to understand and hope to have a halfway decent conversation about this. "I saw him go into her office and I saw them talking, and then I saw them looking at me. I can put two and two together. She didn't say anything. There's a good chance that she doesn't even... I don't think she'd care. And I'm not just saying that because I'm trying to make you feel better because I don't think anything's going to make either of us feel better and if you want to never see me again I get it because I know that this is really, really bad."
Right now, that's all he's worried about. Selfish, maybe, but he's worried about Ned deciding that he's a horrible person -- and, obviously, a bad liar, when it comes right down to it, unable to even convince Bob that he'd been mistaken. He'd obviously talked about Ned too much around the office, obviously been too pleased and happy to really control how overjoyed he'd been about the whole thing, and now it had backfired spectacularly, and this had happened.
Ginsberg takes Ned by surprise yet again, and he, too, looks up. "What?" The surprise and confusion on his face is clearly genuine. "Why wouldn't I want to see you again?"
This is a bad situation, sure, but that had never even crossed his mind. Belatedly, the reasoning starts becoming clear. Speaking quicker than usual, Ned says, "Ginsberg, I don't have any bosses who can fire me. I don't have a family I'm hiding this from. The possible consequences of this, for me, are pretty minor." It's not safe, still. Of course it's not. If he wanted to, Bob (Ned automatically discounts Peggy from any kind of projected malice) could do him harm with it, but it would take much more effort on his part, and yield him less potential gain. "And really, if I'm honest, it's not even that high on my list of secrets."
At last, he's getting enough of a hold of himself to bridge the distance between them. Ginsberg's hanging his head like he's ashamed and Ned reaches out, cupping his face in his hands and lifting it up. "We can deal with this. It's not the end of the world. There's got to be a way. Two ways. Maybe even a dozen. Peggy seems decent and Bob's... Bob's just one guy." He repeats, "There's got to be a way."
Their looks of surprise match, except that he's surprised to see the look of confusion on Ned's face. He'd just assumed, of course, that once he'd made this major of a mistake -- never mind all the awkward times he'd messed up dates or gotten them into trouble in other ways -- Ned would decide he'd had quite enough. Ned's making a good point here, a decent one, that if one of them is going to get in trouble at work, it's going to be Ginsberg, not Ned, that if anyone's family is going to find out, it's going to be the same problem.
"There're ways, but..."
He finally meets Ned's eyes, reassured, despite himself, by the comforting touch. "There was a guy who used to work for my company that was... I mean, people found out about him. Some people. And they didn't fire him for that. And I don't think they'll fire me for it, either, but... there're worse things that can happen. And maybe you don't want to be around for those worse things."
"Yeah," Ned says, with a small smile at the corner of his mouth, voice dipping a little with gentle sarcasm, "I'd definitely not want to see you again for that, because it's not like I've ever fucked up or anything." The gentle humor is meant as a reassurance; a suggestion that the idea of having such a reaction is so ridiculous to him that he won't even take it seriously.
"What worse things?" He hates to pry, he really does, particularly when Ginsberg has that shifty look like he doesn't want to go into it. But at the same time, Ned honestly has no idea what he means. Extortion? Blackmail? Nothing would be too low for the sort of people Ginsberg works with, based on some of the stories he tells. It's a cut-throat world that Ned doesn't quite know the rules to. Before Ginsberg has the chance to answer him he adds, "If Bob tells anyone I'll bake him a pie that'll- well. Let's just say he'll be in extreme gastrointestinal distress."
He means it, too. It's not like he's never done that before. Ned has a well-hidden vindictive streak that is quite callous.
"Okay, okay, point taken." He smiles back, a little tentatively, amazed to find that Ned's sarcasm actually is reassuring. It usually takes a lot more than that to talk him into feeling somewhat placated. Of course, he's not entirely placated. He's naturally skittish anyway, and something like this could get him feeling rattled for a long time. It's impressive enough that Ned's capable of dispelling a little bit of the doom and gloom attitude Ginsberg can so easily slip into; it's just another thing on the ever-growing list of reasons he likes Ned.
Oh. That question. Now it's time for his own little sarcastic smile, but it's not meant to reassure anyone of anything. It's not-so-subtly covering up genuine fear. "I only know about any of it based on rumors and half-truths and whispers around the office, so I could be wrong, but what I've been able to put together is that they found out about this guy, they tried to blackmail him into doing something he didn't want to do, and when he refused, they fired him. It wasn't the homosexuality that was the problem, it was the fact that he wouldn't use it for their benefit."
Now he looks both shifty and vaguely sick, though the comment about baking Bob a pie like that still has the smile remaining weakly on his face. "You might want to keep the recipe for that pie for Bob handy. I don't think he'll tell anyone more than he already has, but..." A helpless shrug.
Of course. It makes a kind of sense. It's all blackmail, in the end, but it only stands to reason that the kind of people Ginsberg works with would never let something as petty as their prejudice get in the way of opportunities to make money. Integrity, even to their own fucked-up prejudices, was always going to take a second seat to profit.
Ned doesn't bother to hide the disgust on his face; if anyone tried to pull something like that on Ginsberg, well... he doesn't know what he would do. But there is a feeling in his chest like a hot coal when he even thinks about it. Ned doesn't like to dwell on his own anger, on the potential for rage and callousness and violence in him. But it's there. He swallows, manages a smile just as weak as Ginsberg's.
"Does anybody know about... about him?" Ned feels uneasy with what he's suggesting, but he goes on, "I mean... if it comes down to it there's always. Finding a way to discredit him, before he can say anything about you." He rubs a hand against the back of his neck, taking a step away from Ginsberg. He hates himself a bit for saying it, adds knowingly, "It might not exactly be the moral high ground, but sometimes the moral high ground's a luxury you just can't afford."
He takes a deep breath, and the disgust on his face matches Ned's pretty much exactly. He doesn't like the thought of discrediting anyone like that, using private information about someone to do what you want them to do. It's something that happens at his company, but he's never learned how to do it himself. Oh, he possesses a certain sort of odd cunning, but not when it comes to hurting other people. Never there.
"I don't like him. I mean, you know I don't like him. But I wouldn't do that to him, no matter how much I don't like him. And I know that he probably doesn't have the same compunctions about telling people things about me and I know that it'd be smarter to use what I know against him first to save my own ass but it's not right. It's just..."
He trails off, shakes his head silently, resumes his thought after a moment of contemplation. "I don't have it in me."
Edited (I really need to learn how to finish sentences) 2014-03-22 22:57 (UTC)
Ned nods, strangely relieved. Not only because he wouldn't know what to do next if Ginsberg had agreed that striking first was the best strategy, but also because it's a kind of comfort, knowing that it's a line the other man would never cross. Part of that comfort is selfish: he knows things about Ned that he'd never thought he would allow anyone to know. The fact that he would stick to a kind of zero-tolerance policy on blackmail, even for someone like Bob, is reassuring. If (and in his mind, it's an if that is shaded in a fear that he ought to think when) Ned fucked up badly enough to make Ginsberg hate him, maybe he'd still keep his secrets. Maybe.
"Okay." He lets out a breath that's only a little shaky. "Okay. You're right. I'll just... keep the recipe ready." Which is to say, the two of them can cross that bridge when they come to it. "It was a bad idea anyway," he admits. Then, without exactly meaning to, he adds in a softer voice, "I like that you don't have it in you."
Because Ginsberg isn't like the rest of those people he works with. In a way, he isn't even like Ned. Ned knows that, underneath the harmless surface, there are times when his moral compass doesn't exactly point to true north. There are situations, scenarios he can imagine, where he'd have it in him to do a hell of a lot worse. Nice to think that Ginsberg is different. He doesn't much like feeling that potential inside of him, and isn't sure if finding it in Ginsberg wouldn't... sour his view of him, a tiny bit.
"It wasn't a bad idea. It's the kind of thing that'd work for a lot of people. It's probably the most logical idea, in fact. It's just..."
How does he explain it without sounding crazy? The fact that he doesn't worry so much about sounding crazy around Ned anymore is a good sign -- Ned has never even hinted at finding him crazy at all, which is a welcome relief, when even most of the people he considers friends still find him unbearably eccentric at times. Regardless, there're some things that he just doesn't quite know how to explain.
He wants to, though. Thinks maybe he should, as long as they're talking about secrets. And Ned knows something about secrets, himself. That makes it both easier and harder. Easier because he knows Ned will understand, harder because... he can't imagine living with the kind of secrets that Ned does. The thought of it is almost incomprehensible.
"I know a lot of secrets. I know a lot of things about a lot of people that I probably shouldn't know and that a lot of people probably think I don't know, because they don't know how observant I am and they don't bother to hide things as well as they probably should around me--" And, well, he knows Ned's secrets, too. Some of them. He doubts he knows all of them. Nobody knows everything.
"--and I have a lot of secrets. And sometimes I think that if I start saying what I know about other people, if I tell someone what I know about Bob, or anyone else around that office, then it'll all just come tumbling out, and I'll say everything I know, and the fact that I have the power to hurt people like that... I'm terrified. All the time."
And that, too, he thinks is something Ned understands. Fear. Of a different sort, maybe, but fear, just the same.
"I understand." Perhaps not in the exact same way - Ned isn't really the guardian of anyone's secrets but his own. But individual components of the feeling Ginsberg is expressing do ring true: the sense that many people - most people - reveal more than they think they do. The feeling that if he started spilling secrets, he might not stop. Most of all, the fear of the power he has in him to hurt. To ruin lives.
He leans forward, dips his head to rest his forehead against Ginsberg's and runs his hands through the other man's hair, gently, reassuringly. The initial panic and fear over their discovery is ebbing away, and Ned knows that they'll deal with this. They'll get through it. But he can imagine what it's going to be like for Ginsberg, for the next few days. With Bob and Peggy and the weight of it between them. He'd felt it himself, after Ginsberg found out what he could do. Even though he was certain Ginsberg wouldn't go spilling his secret, at least not just yet, he was hyper-aware of every interaction, looking always for signs of disgust, of fear, of invasive curiosity. It had never gone away entirely, but it was much more muted, now. Possible to ignore, most of the time.
Usually, that's a good way to end a conversation, to get people to stop asking questions he doesn't want to answer, but when he's saying it to Ned, he has the feeling that it could almost be true. Maybe he will be fine, so long as Bob doesn't say anything to anyone else, so long as Ned doesn't decide, for some reason, that this is reason enough to want to stop seeing him.
Ned's hands running through his hair are reassuring, though, as is Ned's forehead resting against his own. Reassuring enough that he's able to offer a relatively genuine smile, and wrap an arm around Ned's waist, squeezing him with a sudden burst of affection.
"Are you gonna be okay?"
That's really what he's concerned about, after all. That's what it always comes down to, in the end.
There's still audible worry in Ginsberg's voice, which is what keeps Ned from dismissing the question altogether. To him, it's obvious that he'll be alright. What power does Bob really have over him? Ned doesn't think of himself as invulnerable - far from it - but he has a realistic notion of the situation. Bob wouldn't stand to gain much from trying to blackmail him, and it would take significantly more effort and trouble for him to even try to do so.
But of course, he also knows that worry is far from rational. His concern is not correctness, but reassuring Ginsberg that the only person he ought to be worrying about is himself.
"You eaten anything today?" Ned asks, because feeding people, taking care of them, is one of the ways he expresses affection, and he wouldn't put it past Ginsberg to have forgotten, in his agitation.
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He'd always suspected that about Bob, but of course he doesn't know for sure, doesn't have evidence, and can't possibly fathom destroying someone's life by telling a secret like that, even if someone did the same thing to him. Even if Bob told, even if he used it as some kind of blackmail, he's not sure he could turn around and return the favor. He just doesn't have it in him.
He imitates Ned's motion, covers his face with his hands, because he has to say the next part, but he doesn't want to. It comes out muffled. "I know he already told Peggy."
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When Ginsberg says what he suspects about Bob, that changes matters, yes, but not necessarily for the better. If Bob were going to be decent about it he'd never have confronted Ginsberg about the drawings in the first place, would never have threatened to tell everyone, even if he was just looking for confirmation. Ned knows that if he somehow found out that another person had a secret, the way that he'd show his respect would be pretending never to know. That was his way of doing things.
"How do you know that?" he asks, heart sinking further.
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Right now, that's all he's worried about. Selfish, maybe, but he's worried about Ned deciding that he's a horrible person -- and, obviously, a bad liar, when it comes right down to it, unable to even convince Bob that he'd been mistaken. He'd obviously talked about Ned too much around the office, obviously been too pleased and happy to really control how overjoyed he'd been about the whole thing, and now it had backfired spectacularly, and this had happened.
Maybe it was only a matter of time.
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This is a bad situation, sure, but that had never even crossed his mind. Belatedly, the reasoning starts becoming clear. Speaking quicker than usual, Ned says, "Ginsberg, I don't have any bosses who can fire me. I don't have a family I'm hiding this from. The possible consequences of this, for me, are pretty minor." It's not safe, still. Of course it's not. If he wanted to, Bob (Ned automatically discounts Peggy from any kind of projected malice) could do him harm with it, but it would take much more effort on his part, and yield him less potential gain. "And really, if I'm honest, it's not even that high on my list of secrets."
At last, he's getting enough of a hold of himself to bridge the distance between them. Ginsberg's hanging his head like he's ashamed and Ned reaches out, cupping his face in his hands and lifting it up. "We can deal with this. It's not the end of the world. There's got to be a way. Two ways. Maybe even a dozen. Peggy seems decent and Bob's... Bob's just one guy." He repeats, "There's got to be a way."
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Their looks of surprise match, except that he's surprised to see the look of confusion on Ned's face. He'd just assumed, of course, that once he'd made this major of a mistake -- never mind all the awkward times he'd messed up dates or gotten them into trouble in other ways -- Ned would decide he'd had quite enough. Ned's making a good point here, a decent one, that if one of them is going to get in trouble at work, it's going to be Ginsberg, not Ned, that if anyone's family is going to find out, it's going to be the same problem.
"There're ways, but..."
He finally meets Ned's eyes, reassured, despite himself, by the comforting touch. "There was a guy who used to work for my company that was... I mean, people found out about him. Some people. And they didn't fire him for that. And I don't think they'll fire me for it, either, but... there're worse things that can happen. And maybe you don't want to be around for those worse things."
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"What worse things?" He hates to pry, he really does, particularly when Ginsberg has that shifty look like he doesn't want to go into it. But at the same time, Ned honestly has no idea what he means. Extortion? Blackmail? Nothing would be too low for the sort of people Ginsberg works with, based on some of the stories he tells. It's a cut-throat world that Ned doesn't quite know the rules to. Before Ginsberg has the chance to answer him he adds, "If Bob tells anyone I'll bake him a pie that'll- well. Let's just say he'll be in extreme gastrointestinal distress."
He means it, too. It's not like he's never done that before. Ned has a well-hidden vindictive streak that is quite callous.
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Oh. That question. Now it's time for his own little sarcastic smile, but it's not meant to reassure anyone of anything. It's not-so-subtly covering up genuine fear. "I only know about any of it based on rumors and half-truths and whispers around the office, so I could be wrong, but what I've been able to put together is that they found out about this guy, they tried to blackmail him into doing something he didn't want to do, and when he refused, they fired him. It wasn't the homosexuality that was the problem, it was the fact that he wouldn't use it for their benefit."
Now he looks both shifty and vaguely sick, though the comment about baking Bob a pie like that still has the smile remaining weakly on his face. "You might want to keep the recipe for that pie for Bob handy. I don't think he'll tell anyone more than he already has, but..." A helpless shrug.
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Ned doesn't bother to hide the disgust on his face; if anyone tried to pull something like that on Ginsberg, well... he doesn't know what he would do. But there is a feeling in his chest like a hot coal when he even thinks about it. Ned doesn't like to dwell on his own anger, on the potential for rage and callousness and violence in him. But it's there. He swallows, manages a smile just as weak as Ginsberg's.
"Does anybody know about... about him?" Ned feels uneasy with what he's suggesting, but he goes on, "I mean... if it comes down to it there's always. Finding a way to discredit him, before he can say anything about you." He rubs a hand against the back of his neck, taking a step away from Ginsberg. He hates himself a bit for saying it, adds knowingly, "It might not exactly be the moral high ground, but sometimes the moral high ground's a luxury you just can't afford."
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He takes a deep breath, and the disgust on his face matches Ned's pretty much exactly. He doesn't like the thought of discrediting anyone like that, using private information about someone to do what you want them to do. It's something that happens at his company, but he's never learned how to do it himself. Oh, he possesses a certain sort of odd cunning, but not when it comes to hurting other people. Never there.
"I don't like him. I mean, you know I don't like him. But I wouldn't do that to him, no matter how much I don't like him. And I know that he probably doesn't have the same compunctions about telling people things about me and I know that it'd be smarter to use what I know against him first to save my own ass but it's not right. It's just..."
He trails off, shakes his head silently, resumes his thought after a moment of contemplation. "I don't have it in me."
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"Okay." He lets out a breath that's only a little shaky. "Okay. You're right. I'll just... keep the recipe ready." Which is to say, the two of them can cross that bridge when they come to it. "It was a bad idea anyway," he admits. Then, without exactly meaning to, he adds in a softer voice, "I like that you don't have it in you."
Because Ginsberg isn't like the rest of those people he works with. In a way, he isn't even like Ned. Ned knows that, underneath the harmless surface, there are times when his moral compass doesn't exactly point to true north. There are situations, scenarios he can imagine, where he'd have it in him to do a hell of a lot worse. Nice to think that Ginsberg is different. He doesn't much like feeling that potential inside of him, and isn't sure if finding it in Ginsberg wouldn't... sour his view of him, a tiny bit.
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How does he explain it without sounding crazy? The fact that he doesn't worry so much about sounding crazy around Ned anymore is a good sign -- Ned has never even hinted at finding him crazy at all, which is a welcome relief, when even most of the people he considers friends still find him unbearably eccentric at times. Regardless, there're some things that he just doesn't quite know how to explain.
He wants to, though. Thinks maybe he should, as long as they're talking about secrets. And Ned knows something about secrets, himself. That makes it both easier and harder. Easier because he knows Ned will understand, harder because... he can't imagine living with the kind of secrets that Ned does. The thought of it is almost incomprehensible.
"I know a lot of secrets. I know a lot of things about a lot of people that I probably shouldn't know and that a lot of people probably think I don't know, because they don't know how observant I am and they don't bother to hide things as well as they probably should around me--" And, well, he knows Ned's secrets, too. Some of them. He doubts he knows all of them. Nobody knows everything.
"--and I have a lot of secrets. And sometimes I think that if I start saying what I know about other people, if I tell someone what I know about Bob, or anyone else around that office, then it'll all just come tumbling out, and I'll say everything I know, and the fact that I have the power to hurt people like that... I'm terrified. All the time."
And that, too, he thinks is something Ned understands. Fear. Of a different sort, maybe, but fear, just the same.
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He leans forward, dips his head to rest his forehead against Ginsberg's and runs his hands through the other man's hair, gently, reassuringly. The initial panic and fear over their discovery is ebbing away, and Ned knows that they'll deal with this. They'll get through it. But he can imagine what it's going to be like for Ginsberg, for the next few days. With Bob and Peggy and the weight of it between them. He'd felt it himself, after Ginsberg found out what he could do. Even though he was certain Ginsberg wouldn't go spilling his secret, at least not just yet, he was hyper-aware of every interaction, looking always for signs of disgust, of fear, of invasive curiosity. It had never gone away entirely, but it was much more muted, now. Possible to ignore, most of the time.
"You gonna be okay?" he murmurs.
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Usually, that's a good way to end a conversation, to get people to stop asking questions he doesn't want to answer, but when he's saying it to Ned, he has the feeling that it could almost be true. Maybe he will be fine, so long as Bob doesn't say anything to anyone else, so long as Ned doesn't decide, for some reason, that this is reason enough to want to stop seeing him.
Ned's hands running through his hair are reassuring, though, as is Ned's forehead resting against his own. Reassuring enough that he's able to offer a relatively genuine smile, and wrap an arm around Ned's waist, squeezing him with a sudden burst of affection.
"Are you gonna be okay?"
That's really what he's concerned about, after all. That's what it always comes down to, in the end.
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There's still audible worry in Ginsberg's voice, which is what keeps Ned from dismissing the question altogether. To him, it's obvious that he'll be alright. What power does Bob really have over him? Ned doesn't think of himself as invulnerable - far from it - but he has a realistic notion of the situation. Bob wouldn't stand to gain much from trying to blackmail him, and it would take significantly more effort and trouble for him to even try to do so.
But of course, he also knows that worry is far from rational. His concern is not correctness, but reassuring Ginsberg that the only person he ought to be worrying about is himself.
"You eaten anything today?" Ned asks, because feeding people, taking care of them, is one of the ways he expresses affection, and he wouldn't put it past Ginsberg to have forgotten, in his agitation.