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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 )
no subject
[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— ]
no subject
[ 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. ]
no subject
[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.
no subject
... 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. ]
no subject
[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.]