[ A terse answer for something a lot more complicated, under the surface.
Rogue seems like - feels like - a good person, and so her dreams of people calling her a murderer and a monster confuse him, and stir up anger on her behalf. She feels like warmth and good intentions. She feels nothing like a real murderer.
Elliot...definitely has layers that Joshua hasn't grasped yet. But he's both a good enough person to immediately condemn what was done to Joshua, and a reasonable enough person to recognize that what's done is done instead of making it into a point of pity. It's about as good of a first meeting as Joshua would dare to hope for, with someone who has a direct line to his mind and can thus easily see exactly what a disaster of an excuse for a human being he is.
And Hadrian -
- gives him pause, because as unremarkable as that first impression was, there's something about Hadrian that feels like he's going in circles around him and not really seeing anything. But getting closer to anyone's thoughts is a daunting enough idea that he doesn't want to chase it down, figure it out - that means hitting more feelings in the process and feelings are terrifying not a thing he needs to invite in. ]
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[ A terse answer for something a lot more complicated, under the surface.
Rogue seems like - feels like - a good person, and so her dreams of people calling her a murderer and a monster confuse him, and stir up anger on her behalf. She feels like warmth and good intentions. She feels nothing like a real murderer.
Elliot...definitely has layers that Joshua hasn't grasped yet. But he's both a good enough person to immediately condemn what was done to Joshua, and a reasonable enough person to recognize that what's done is done instead of making it into a point of pity. It's about as good of a first meeting as Joshua would dare to hope for, with someone who has a direct line to his mind and can thus easily see exactly what a disaster of an excuse for a human being he is.
And Hadrian -
- gives him pause, because as unremarkable as that first impression was, there's something about Hadrian that feels like he's going in circles around him and not really seeing anything. But getting closer to anyone's thoughts is a daunting enough idea that he doesn't want to chase it down, figure it out - that means hitting more feelings in the process and feelings are
terrifyingnot a thing he needs to invite in. ]