[CT] 13.3 - Possessive

It's one of those traits I have learned someone either hates or loves. Some people need it, need that proof that you need them, that you fear losing them. It makes them feel valued, loved, important. Others feel trapped by it, not trusted, like an object. Some will beg to be marked, just to show the world they are yours. Others will find such an idea an anathema. I try and gauge how much I let it show, depending on the person, depending on their reactions, but I cannot fight the urge.

I've lost too many, I suppose. To betrayal. To age. To death. It makes the urge to hold on sometimes overwhelming. There is fear, when I love, always, because, truly, love has not worked out so well for me through the centuries. I am not a clingy sort of person, so it comes out in other ways. Demands, sometimes unreasonable. Withholding parts of myself if I feel I do not have all of my partner. I know I am inordinately possessive. I know I do not tolerate sharing well. I know there is a double standard in that, as I have asked lovers to share me at times. I know that this is a problem in many of my relationships.

But at least I can acknowledge it's a problem? If I were perfect, after all, there wouldn't be a need for therapy, and this is likely one of my biggest issues to work through.

[CT] 13.2 -- What was your first impression of your partner?

[OOC Note: AU 'verse, inspired by this fanvid that made me go "oooooh". Peter referred to is thatsortofpower]

Pretty, very pretty, but really quite mad. Right out of Bedlam, for sure, I thought, though how he'd ended up in Japan I couldn't fathom. Surely no ship would take him on, talking the way he was, about the future? His clothes were strange, true, and his speech, though it was a relief after so long to find someone who spoke English, even with his strange accent. The place he spoke of being from, I'd never heard of, even. "New York." It was New Amsterdam, then, you see, and part of the Dutch colonies, not the British. He at least adjusted to that to clear up the confusion of locality, but then his complete lack of knowledge of the Dutch language, of which I'd picked up a bit on the ship, was just as baffling, though he seemed to think it ought to lend credence to his story.

But how do you accept that someone has come from the future to fix the past -- to fix you -- especially when you're not aware that anything is truly broken? Which, looking back, I suppose I knew on some level, but I was a child, then, not even thirty, and hardly given to the introspection and self-examination I am now.

He wasn't mad, of course. Not in the least bit, though I have to say he does have a tendency towards maudlin brooding that I've never quite broken him of, but that isn't madness, nor is it relevant for the discussion. But then? That day? I thought it a pity that someone quite so pretty had to be insane. Of course, I couldn't leave him to wander the countryside all alone in that state. He didn't speak the language; he had no idea of the customs; he stood out like a sore thumb, both by virtue of being a gaijin and his clothes and attitude. So, I took him with me out of some sort of...fine. Out of pure selfishness, really. He was pretty, he spoke English, I was lonely, and he seemed terribly fond of me for some reason I didn't understand then. His story proved to be far more true than I could fathom, then, but that is neither here nor there when asking about first impressions. It's a story for another topic, an issue to delve into at another time. Perhaps.