Her words dig into him, because it hurts to hear a friend as close as her talk like that. It hurts that his attempt to cheer her didn’t work. He sinks impossibly lower into the table, absorbing her words. It takes him a good, long moment to figure out how to respond.
Then he plants his hands flat on the table, and rises up, leaning forwards.
“Evil? Just? Average? Aren’t aspirations supposed to be above where you are?” He goes on with rising incredulity. “Of all things–the day someone calls you average is the day I pull a cartoon mask off of someone impersonating you, ‘cause you’re anything but!”
His fingers drag inwards, forming fists against the table. They’re shaking. His tone is dropping from half-joke to full-genuine under his own nose, so to speak, and now he’s rolling with an unfamiliar momentum. He’s running out of jokes to pad his feelings with, but somehow he just keeps going.
“Rosie, you ‘failed’ at being evil ‘cause of sabotage! And nobody can blame you for not having practice at the other things. Even if you did, I’m living proof that practice doesn’t make perfect.
“And–And!! Even when you were being sabotaged, even when everything was against you…!” His voice quiets, a little. “…You figured out who you were, Rosie–Rosemaster. You redefined yourself.”
“But now you can’t do it again?! Now you’re a failure, now it won’t work? When you’ve proven how much you are capable of?!” He pounds his fists on the table. A librarian makes a very visible ‘quiet down’ gesture towards his shouting, which he ignores.
“You can’t just make up nonsense and pass it off as the ‘truth’ when I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you!!”
She continues, at first, to hang her head, her eyes dark. It’s as if there’s a wall between them, solid and impenetrable - no words capable of passing through it and reaching her.
But then, something does reach her. Or, rather, a lot of somethings.
“You failed at being evil because of sabotage.”
“You figured out who you were.”
“When you’ve proven how much you are capable of.”
And then, the coup de grace:
“I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.”
“What?” she says sharply.
And then she abruptly stands up and, just as Besty did, slams her fists on the table.
“How dare you?! To even suggest that you aren’t deserving...! As if you don’t deserve everything the world, that any world in any reality, could give you!”
And she quickly wraps him in a hug.
“You’re my best friend. Don’t talk about yourself that way.”