013 ♐ Video ♐ I'm writing this letter and wishing you well; Mama, we all go to hell

[codename_duchess]

[Archer's been thinking. Running around teasing the flooded passengers was a good distraction, but his talk with Rogue has stuck in his mind. So this time he looks a bit more somber, although no more sober than usual. He's sitting on his bed, tie undone, sipping a gin and tonic with Kazak sprawled out behind him.]

Hey, I just have a question.

Is it uh - shit. [He falters, uncharacteristic for him.] Is it normal to hate your mother?

Comments

Private;

[codename_duchess]

She paid for all my upbringing and stuff? And now I work for her at ISIS.

Private;

[youwillgotohell]

Then why do you hate her?

Private;

[codename_duchess]

I guess I don't, in a way. But she is a total bitch.

Private;

[youwillgotohell]

Then tell me how. Tell me why you hate her, and why you don't.

Private;

[codename_duchess]

She's mean. When I was a kid she never spent any time with me. She was always off working and would stick me with Woodhouse for years at a time, or ship me off to boarding school for fifteen years. [Yup, not twelve. Fifteen.] And even when she was around she was a bitch. I'd wake up from nightmares and she'd lock her door to keep me out. She threw a party for her dog's birthday and made me clean the chimney. She didn't throw one for mine.

Also she's a total whore. It's gross.

But she's my mother, and - I dunno, I guess I love her anyway.

Private;

[youwillgotohell]

[She's quiet for a moment. Uther treated her better than that, in his good years - if they can be called that. He threw grandiose parties for her birthday, he was relatively available for her to argue with or ask questions of.

She loved him like a father, sometimes, before she knew he was her father. All the same.]

She sounds like a terrible mother.

Private;

[codename_duchess]

[It's hard to explain why, after all that, Archer still loves Malory so much. He does suspect she loves him: all the horrible mistreatment and neglect and negative reinforcement - Malory did it to toughen him up. To make sure he became exceptional. And she succeeded, didn't she? As dysfunctional as Sterling is, he's a formidable agent and person.

Just not a good one. She couldn't teach something she didn't know.]

Yeah. Duh and/or hello.

Private;

[youwillgotohell]

You're not obliged to love someone so awful.

[That was a double edged lesson, for her. She wasn't obliged to love Uther, and now no one is obliged to love her.

She shrugs: Archer is impressive in many ways, but they all have their faults. They become inescapable.]

Private;

[codename_duchess]

What if I do anyway? You can't really help loving someone, right?

Or hating them.

Private;

[youwillgotohell]

Then you deal with it. One way or another.

[Either he loves her enough to put up with the rest, or he hates her enough to kill her.

These really shouldn't be the only two options in her mind, but there we are.]