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[you know how sometimes you try to fight a pirate and the pirate's got a goddamn universal cheat code of a sword, and all you've got is a universal embarrassment of a sword, and then you kind of fall off the face of the earth for two weeks while your mother from another universe was scolding you for getting possessed]

[it really is like that sometimes]

[anyway, hi Mista! here's a text after said two weeks:]

hey

[It's been a rough couple weeks. A busy couple, fortunately, but that doesn't mean worries aren't still worrying. So it's a good thing the bracers aren't even remotely removable because Mista sure would drop his at this text otherwise.]

DAVE

[oh he must be forgiven then]

are you ok???

yeah of course
ive got my own sick boombox and everything
like i just cruised off this ship straight out of the 80s
minus the nylon
i dont have the nylon
tbh i dont want the nylon

[he's joking around because it's better than acknowledging the sort of soul snatched headspace he actually has been in these past two weeks.]

anyway
where are you rn

anybody ever tell you you use jokes to avoid talking about your fucking feelings

the codpadre
im on the deck thinkin about leo and kate on the prow of the titanic

nope
literally never

[i want to ask when Dave got so shitty at lying, but lbr, he's always been this way.]

okay hang on a sec kate
lemme catch up to the 90s

[that is to say, about five minutes later, there's a son joining Mista on deck. he looks a bit bedraggled, but not all that worse for the wear.]

[Obediently, he waits. But when Dave makes it up to the deck to find Mista crouched by the front port rail, feet kicking over the edge, he wastes absolutely no time. Twisting at the waist to point accusingly:]

I wouldn't have kicked Leo's ass off that door.

[. . .]

[This is the least serious he's ever been about anything. Which is saying something. His expression is more strained with poorly-disguised concern than anything.]

Get over here.

[Dave makes the sort of half wobbly expression he does when he's accused of murdering Leonardo DiCaprio and he's trying really hard not to smirk too much over it.]

Yeah, I know, dude. You've got better dance moves, too.

[he obliges, though, not really sure how else to react to the look Mista Winslet is giving him, stepping closer and plopping himself on down.]

Damn right I do!

[In another situation, he'd let Dave know that he'd be Leo anyway, because he's the scruffy idiot from the wrong side of the tracks. On the plus side, he knows how to swim, so . . . But maybe another time. For now, he just eyeballs Dave as he sits.]

[And then punches his shoulder. Not that hard, but not that not-hard either.]

You fucking people.

What the fuck.

[his tilt over that's short-lived, though; he knows he fucked up five ways to another entire dimension, and if he's going to actually learn anything from being an impulsive try-to-fight-the-final-boss-himself moron, he's going to have to own up to it.]

[he rolls his punched shoulder, all the hells of scandalized, then softens, and slouches.]

Okay, okay, fine, fair enough. I probably deserved that.

[Yeah, good. He's not fucking Narancia, he's not gonna pick a full-fledged knives-out fight over being freaked out, but. This sucked. This whole thing sucked.]

I know there was shit about that whole situation you couldn't control. 'M not mad about that shit. Just don't — I don't know.

[The weak little kick-punch on the inside of his ribs that signifies Cinque wanting to come out — he clenches down on it, flops sideways and bumps Dave's shoulder with his own before righting himself.]

You coulda asked for help, man.

[Dave's quiet for a few seconds, unusual for a kid who tends to spout off whatever he thinks of the second it comes to mind.]

[that's because he's actually trying to be sincere here.]

Yeah. I guess.

[still ... trying.]

I don't wanna say that hindsight's perfect vision or something dumb like that, because that'd mean I'd be talking from the perspective of my ass — [Dave, why do you have to ruin every saying you touch.] — but, uh.

I dunno. I freaked out, and I'm used to handling shit like this by myself. Time loop shit. Thought it was time loop shit anyway. Turned out to be more like, stop and think for five seconds shit.

[For what it's worth, Mista appreciates the effort. He doesn't quite get it, himself — the obnoxious jokes part, anyway — but he's familiar with the desire to divert attention away from one's own shit by any means necessary. Trying to stop any habit's fucking hard.]

[And he's not here to lecture, either, because that'd be hypocritical as fuck and he doesn't even know how to. Instead he listens, head cocked slightly to the side so he can hear Dave properly over the occasional gust of wind.]

I can't really blame you for freaking out. Time shit's the freakiest, and I never even had to mess with loops. [He has a slightly queasy expression at this point. Skips were bad enough thanks!!!] And I can't blame you for that moment of — okay, I know I know how to deal with what I think this is, no need to drag anybody else into it. 'Cause you're the expert, right?

Stopping and thinking for five seconds sucks sometimes. Especially when you're freaking out and mad.

That's implying to me that you deal with freaky time shit on the regular.

[that thought is spiced with bland, then somewhat bitter, amusement. he'd found peace with not being able to time travel when he first lost the ability, which melted into blind panic over the fact that Ryuji was dead and he couldn't, which reformed into hating it all over again, because trying to figure out how to prevented him from seeing what he really needed to see in the first place.]

[that he never needed time travel at all.]

[Dave's on the cusp of admitting a real vulnerability here; he's been spending the past year and change trying to figure out how to be honest with his feelings instead of slapping a joke on them and calling them done, even though he did technically just do that, didn't he? he stares off into the horizon like a pensive anime character, ultimately deciding that he trusts Mista enough.]

You know what fucking sucks the worst though? Like. If I had stopped and thought about it for five seconds like I just said, instead of reteaching myself the same "time travel is never the answer you dumpass" lesson that I already knew, then it wouldn't have.

[ugh.]

He wouldn't have had to suffer as long as he did, I guess.

I did once. For a while.

[Not as often as Dave, he can already tell that much. There are grooves worn in Dave's habits, in his being, that mean living with something as raw and strange as time moving wrong for weeks, months, years — he doesn't know. It doesn't matter. A long time.]

[Mista can be quiet when he wants to be. Quiet spaces in life are to be treasured: last little vestiges of lazy Saturdays bleeding into early Sundays with the sun fading in through stained glass windows and fresh bread in a paper bag under his arm on the way home. As much as he knows this moment is Dave deciding whether or not to say something that matters, he takes it for what it is. A little quiet. A little time with someone important to him.]

[And when Dave speaks, he turns just a little to look at him, takes his hat off and holds it in his hands to keep it from blowing off into the sea, and to give him something to hold onto. This, he thinks, is why he didn't punch Dave harder. Of course he's already beating himself up.]

I hear you.

[Quiet, low; it's important to say, first thing. That does fucking suck the worst, as it happens. That sucks the most of anything. That's his greatest fear: making some dumb fuckoff mistake and turning around and someone's dead, because of him. Just because Ryuji came back—]

[It's still awful.]

. . . Sometimes it seems like, once you've seen enough shit, your brain just keeps giving you the same advice anytime anything bad happens. Even if you know it's crap advice, it's just gonna scream at you until you do it.

Not saying it doesn't still suck the absolute fucking worst. I'm just saying. You know. [You know. Dave's not the only one who sucks.]

[geez, they're two peas in a desperate-to-do-right-by-their friends pod, aren't they?]

[Dave doesn't smile. he's not all that prone to them. that, and it's hard to find reassurances when the only thing keeping you tethered to this spot right here, so you can have this conversation in the first place, is a radio. every time he looks at it, he just thinks right back to that moment — when someone finally figured out how to break that piece of shit SORD..... and his spirit while he was at it.]

[but, you know? Mista's doing a pretty damn good job of nudging him toward trying to feel better. and despite how mad at himself he is right now, at least, with the same radio he hates to look at, he's got one more shot at fixing it. undoing the damage he's done.]

[not being such a goddamn loser fuckup.]

I, uh. [wow, that came out super awkward. he rubs at the back of his neck, a bit of a learned gesture.]

Thanks, man. I needed to hear shit like that more than I thought I did.

[The look Mista gives him is . . . it's not knowing, really? Not smug enough to be that, and frankly Mista's too goofy by nature to ever come off as wise. More than anything it's an I-get-it look, an I-know-it's-awkward-and-it's-okay look. It's always going to be a little weird, he thinks, for anyone like Dave or like him or like Ryuji or whoever — people who want so desperately to do right by the people who matter to them, but who get caught incredibly off-guard and made uncomfortable when it's turned back on them.]

[He's self-aware enough in this moment to include himself in the group. On a bad day, maybe he won't be. This isn't his bad day, though; it's Dave's. So he gives a lopsided grin and a ducking nod and makes a vague noise of understanding.]

Yeah. Sometimes you don't know it until you hear it.

[He's been the recipient of a shonen speech or two. Which this wasn't, because he doesn't do them. It was just honest. But the principle is the same: sometimes you need a kick in the pants.]

[Speaking of which, kind of — sorry, Dave, the heartfelt moment's on pause for just a sec. Mista can no longer resist the urge to loop an arm around Dave's neck, drag him close, and thoroughly mess up his hair. It's not quite a noogie, but the threat of noogie-ing is very real and present.]

He'll tell you the same fuckin' thing, I bet. I'll bet you — a hundred stupid Faerunian dollars.

Edited 2019-07-21 04:13 (UTC)

Hey —!!

[MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!]

[there's no amount of flailing that he could do here that could save him — though that's partly because he understands something he wouldn't have even a year or two ago. sometimes, people are physically affectionate, and that manifests as not-noogies, and there's not really anything Dave can do to stop it.]

[it's kind of nice, actually. he didn't really grow up having people in his immediate vicinity care about him, so. it's nice. and even though he puffs up like an angry bird, much like his bird hair is already mussed up, he doesn't really mean it.]

You're right, though. Those 100 Faebucks are basically yours.

[Mista's not at all booksmart, but he makes up for it by being pretty people-smart. If Dave actually fucking hated being touched, he'd back off. It's not like Dave would be his first prickly friend or anything. Before the Bureau, pretty much all he had was prickly fucked-up weirdos for friends; this is pretty comforting, actually. And Dave isn't about to unleash a deadly neurotoxin on Mista if he jumpscares him, so this is in a lot of ways a huge improvement.]

[All that said, once the not-noogie subsides, he relinquishes his grip into a loose Bro Hug, easy to wiggle out of and punctuated by a light thump to Dave's opposite shoulder.]

He's a good guy. You're pretty lucky.

. . . You guys need a fuckin' break, though, seriously. [Can he somehow orchestrate a long weekend mini-vacation for Dave and Ryuji because if so, Lucretia, he wants to talk.]

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hi mom!

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