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[the chorus of blondie's CALL ME, sung extremely poorly but with great enthusiasm]
( text | voice | video | action )
[the chorus of blondie's CALL ME, sung extremely poorly but with great enthusiasm]
( text | voice | video | action )
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[Living in decently close quarters with someone for over a year means he recognizes Lion's handwriting anyway, but reading the note, he has to kind of laugh. Signed or not signed, how many people does Lion think call him Mista-san? Not very anonymous.]
[But then he opens the package and looks through what he's received, which are shockingly not whatever the rich person equivalent of a whoopie cushion would be (gold whoopie cushion?), and proceeds to just sit there for a while. Thinking. And sniffling. Ferran's not here, which is good. And Sayori and Maya can't feel him, which is good.]
[It's good.]
[After a while, he gets up and lopes down the hall to Lion's door, which he proceeds to bang on. Heavily.]
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It's a holiday. There is, perhaps, a reason they ran around too-early in the morning to deliver most of their presents, and it isn't because they're fascinated by watching the sun rise over the rim of the moon-base. (They were, when it was new.) Part of it was to spend that time with loved ones instead, sure— even if they hadn't wanted to already, there's no doubt that either of the Feys would insist that they needed to be there. And then there's Will, and...
Gods, they're tired. So maybe they just wanted to spend the rest of the day quietly. Could anyone blame them? Except, y'know, apparently someone can, because that knocking isn't stopping. And it sure is loud. Maybe they shouldn't answer. Surely they'd just assume they weren't home or something after a while, and try again later? Or they'd send a message if it was urgent.
... but if someone needs help and they ignored it just out of petty, sulky spite, they'd never forgive themself. Rrrgh. It takes another moment or two of burying their face in their hands to press the stress back into their mental broom closet, tuck the familiar, slightly-cracked competency back into place. Breathe in. Breathe out. Get up and face the world, again.
The door opens.
It takes more strength then they thought they had not to just close it again. ]
... Hello, Mista-san.
[ Carefully, exhaustedly polite. The kind of polite that isn't sure whether or not it needs to be a knife yet. ]
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[Not aggressively, except inasmuch as the gesture is inherently kind of aggressive. He just doesn't want Lion to close the door. At least he has the sense to stand slightly to the side while he's doing it, more leaning against the jamb than standing in front of the door, so if Lion wants to leave they can. And his posture is casual, like usual. Half from exhaustion, half from losing what remaining fucks he had to give.]
You're the only one who calls me that, y'know.
[Just saying.]
[His expression is . . . complicated. Like there's something on the tip of his tongue he wants to say, but is holding back.]
Why'd you do something nice like that? [For me.] I don't get it.
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... Mm. It's your name, isn't it? [ As if that isn't a strangely loaded phrase. There's a sigh, and— ] Come in.
[ Because even if they don't have anything left to give the conversation that will certainly occur if he does, they are, always, the Successor, and leaving someone outside is just rude.
They don't wait to see if he complies. They just turn and leave without a word, drifting over to the kitchenette, fiddling with a kettle on auto-pilot. If he ignores it, then they don't have to care. If he stays, they'll need tea to get through this alive. And possibly alcohol.
The room inside is... sparse, painfully so. Oh, there's personal touches here and there — a simple vase with roses, Will's sword, a stack or two of books — but the only real sign of habitation is the nightmarish jungle of stress and paper that one of tables has grown into. And resting cheerfully in the middle is The Umbrella, wedged between three different coffee mugs, as lifeless as every other magical thing since Thay.
They don't face him when they speak again. ] What is there to get? It's Candlenights, and I'm not so heartless as to not remember someone.
[ It's a dodge and they both know it. ]
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[He doesn't even like tea. And he's about to say as much, but then thinks better of it, because Lion would probably just brain him with it at this point, and honestly he didn't even come here to fight.]
[So he crosses the threshold, feeling vaguely apprehensive. Steps through into Lion's apartment and looks around, clearly wrong-footed. Doesn't sit. Doesn't even attempt to sit. Where the hell is he supposed to sit?]
[Oh, but there's something annoying enough to bring him back to earth. He squints at Lion irritably.]
You coulda gotten me a fuckin' card. Or an Elf on the Shelf. Or a lump of coal. Or remembered me and not gotten me anything. Don't act like you don't know what I mean.
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Instead there is only silence. The silence is only partially because they don't understand why someone would put an elf on a shelf as a gift and are, at this point, too afraid to ask.
Two mugs are pulled down, but they hesitate rather then pouring both. ]
You say that like any of those wouldn't prompt you to break down my door anyway.
[ What is there to say? "Sorry, I already got you a gift, and didn't want to throw it out?" It's not strictly inaccurate, sure, but it's closer to an outright lie then they'd like. The truth would be simpler but they— they can't. There's more of that day left in them then they thought. ]
... It didn't feel right, just— blowing it off, like that. [ Even if they don't know how to bridge that gap, awkwardly skirting around it is certainly a thing they're capable of. ] Even after... everything.
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[Lion's back is still turned to him. That's probably for the best. The rueful smile that curves on Mista's lips probably wouldn't go over too well. He's not laughing at them, honestly. Just—]
[This isn't how he works. He doesn't hold grudges over shit like this. He tussles and it gets resolved in the aftermath of busted lips and bruised knuckles. He lays out how things are going to be and there's a negotiation, with fists or with weapons. Either it's worth settling like that or it's not worth settling at all. Or it didn't matter in the first place.]
[What's the point of all of this, anyway? However long of this it's been. In the face of fucking everything. Even after everything.]
Hey.
[After some thought, he takes his hat off and scrubs his hand through his hair, trying to unmat his hat head.]
Sorry I yelled at you.
[Just like that.]
[1/2]
One hand curls too tight around the handle of the kettle and they're staring, now, but it— it can't be that simple. It's never that simple. Why isn't he saying anything else? There's a thousand things, bitter or otherwise, lining up on the tip of their tongue and they're meant to be good at this, but they can't just repeat the same mistakes after something like that. But nothing fits.
They don't say, "now? you want to do this now?"
They don't say, "wow, you actually have hair under there."
They don't say— ]
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[ It's funny, in a way that's not funny at all, how they're still not used to apologies that don't have strings attached.
But it's enough to break that awful, tentative silence. It's a start. And for once they're glad that they didn't grab a hairtie before opening the door, because maybe their bangs hid how their eyes are stinging. ]
I shouldn't have assumed, or— or lashed out, either. [ Or held a petty grudge for two months straight. ] You didn't deserve that.
[ —right, tea, the tea exists. Letting it oversteep would be terrible. It's an excuse to drag their focus away, back to something that isn't scrubbing at their face. ]
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[It's really fine. It hurts, but like a week-old bad bruise, not a gut wound. It's not so bad. They'll both be okay.]
[He kind of wishes he hadn't let it fester so long, but there's nothing to be done about that but move forward. And not be assholes to each other anymore, or whatever.]
We were both pretty fucked up, right? With everything. [. . .] Maya and Sayori both said we were both being assholes, except in a nice way. You know how they are. So, I've just been thinkin' about that.
What you said reminded me of somebody back home, and it made me feel like you were accusing me of something I didn't do. I got a bad temper sometimes. No excuses.
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... They're right. [ A sigh. ] I don't know where any of us would be without either of them, at this point.
[ For a long moment that's all they say, still fussing over the cups as they are. Tea for them, sweetened to hell and back like always, and a cup of that soul-black nightmarish stuff that Will claims is coffee, the veracity of which they doubt immensely, for Mista. There's no salvaging the taste, and it'd take too long to make a fresh pot — if they even knew where the less awful coffee was.
So they make two trips, one to pick somewhere to put the coffee and sugar near-ish in case he needs to kill it, the other finally with their own cup. The wait gives them time to pick over their next words carefully. ]
I had no right to get involved in the first place. [ For their part, they perch delicately on the sole, lifeless couch in the room, because if they're picking apart feelings then they should be comfortable. ] Much less react the way I did. I'm not... it's not a medium for conversation that I'm used to, but that doesn't excuse my actions.
[ There's something uniquely terrifying about both being able to re-read an entire conversation in a moment, and reply to it in that same moment without both seeing the other person or having the time to think about what someone is saying. They don't know how anyone from a later time period can handle it so casually. ]
... That 'somebody', it's... who you planted those flowers for, isn't it?
[ Finally, finally, they look across at him, even if their voice is hesitant to match. Wary of saying the wrong thing again, like handling a spooked animal. ]
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[And if he didn't have this nightmare coffee to attend with. Just the smell of it approaching is enough to make him sit up a little straighter, brows drawn together in genuine distress. There's no reason for Lion to want to poison him right now, is there? . . . Except holy shit, there is no way that's actually coffee, right?]
[With a dubious glance at Lion to verify, he battles triple instincts: to only add sugar to coffee in the early morning; to never refuse food or drink when offered; and to live a long and healthy life. Ultimately the latter two win out, and he starts pouring sugar in with no indication of stopping.]
[At least it's something to do with his hands.]
'S okay. It is kinda weird. Probably easier for me to get used to 'cause I never think about anything before I say it anyway [wow], but definitely still weird. The whole conversation was fuckin' stupid, it wasn't just us.
[It was them who got heated and fell out over it, but that's mostly just because they're stubborn, sensitive assholes. On the plus side, at least, he did expect this question. He even pauses in the process of making a coffee-sugar brick to look up at Lion and jerk his chin in a nod of assent, stirring contemplatively with his spoon.]
Yeah. My friend from back home. It's . . . [Hm. He rubs his chin ruefully.] I dunno. We weren't ever anything. I guess I wanted us to be, but we weren't. And I didn't really . . . have time to think about that until I got here. [A helpless, one-shouldered shrug.]