“It’s more than that. If it was a fight with referees, Richard would win; I think Micah would concede that,” Jason said.
Nathaniel and I nodded.
“But if the fight was for real, for dominance of an animal group, Micah would win,” Jason said.
“But wait, how?”
“He’d kill Richard,” I said.
Envy looked at me. “Because he sees Richard as a rival for you?”
“No, Micah kills for the same reason I do in a fight, because we’re too small not to. If we weren’t willing to be more ruthless than a bigger opponent, then we’d both have died years ago.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” I said.
“He hates Micah the most, because Richard knows he should be able to win the fight, and at some level he knows he wouldn’t,” Jason said.
“Why wouldn’t he?” she asked.
“Because Richard would hesitate going for the kill,” I said.
“But if Micah killed Richard, wouldn’t you be upset? Wouldn’t you blame Micah?”
“You mean if Richard pushed it and Micah finished it, would it mess up our relationship?”
“Yes.”
“It would be hard, but I’d understand why Micah did it.”
“I don’t love Richard, but if Micah killed him, I’d have a hard time getting over it.”
“One of the reasons Richard isn’t my main lover is that he didn’t approve of me being willing to kill to prove my point. He wanted there to be a more civilized way to handle things.”
“Anita and Micah are almost equally ruthless,” Nathaniel said.
“You’re saying they both kill more easily than Richard.”
“Oh, hell yes,” he said.
“But you’re in love with Micah and Anita.”
“I am.”
“How can you say they’re both ruthless, if you love them?”
“Maybe part of what I love is their ruthlessness.”
“That’s just fucked up,” she said.
“Insulting us is not going to win you points,” I said.
“Sorry, but I just don’t understand. How do you really feel about loving people because they’re ruthless?”
“Safer,” Nathaniel said.
I squeezed his hand and we exchanged one of those loving looks. The fact that we did it while talking about the fact that we were willing to kill to defend the people we loved was just part of our special little snowflake of a love.