maskormenacelogs | DECEMBER CATCH-ALL

["Everybody was affected" is a perfectly reasonable response to someone blaming themselves for that swear-in's disaster, although with Ken, it probably isn't surprising that it doesn't do much to ease the frown off his face. He just shakes his head and sighs, lowering his head and pushing his hand against his hair, curling his fingers and twisting his bangs around them.]

That was him, too. I guess-- we were fighting for a while, already. That was one of the bigger ones.

That's not like you.

[Ken's a fighter, yes, but not an unreasonable one. He's not quick to spring towards a physical defense unless it's absolutely necessary, as far as Jaime is concerned, or unless someone else has been hurt. There was Hisoka, but at least that had been technically consensual.]

What started it all?

[There's another shake of his head.]

I mean fighting like-- I never fought back. I didn't want to. He was mad at me because I fought in the first place. He had a lot of terrible things happen in the past, and he was starting to trust me but I attacked him. Even if it was Crane's fault...

I dunno. It just kept getting worse and worse.

[Ken not fighting back just makes Jaime's frown deepen. There's a difference between not fighting someone - always a good plan - and not defending yourself. Jaime knows how it is, how tempting it is just to lay back and accept it when someone else is attacking you if you don't want to fight back, but it's different if you're getting hurt.

And Ken's gotten hurt more than once.]

There's nothing wrong with defending yourself if someone's hurting you, Ken -- or telling someone, if it comes to that. But you just said that it didn't start at Crane's. Unless this guy goes around fighting everyone, then it must have started sometime else, right? For some other reason?

[He shrugs.]

He doesn't really trust anyone. He has good reason not to -- I can't say why, but a lot of stuff happened for him back home. So he was really wary of me, so we didn't get along. I-- [and now he shakes his head.] It's fine. It's not important. I was the one who stayed silent about it all this time.

You got hurt. Anything that hurts you, no matter why they did it, is important -- not just you keeping quiet about it.

[Jaime's brows furrow. He'd be able to handle this so much better if they were having this talk another time, he's sure of it. As it is, his head is fuzzy with his return, and he struggles to figure out how to put his thoughts into words, how to conjoin this strange feeling of blank disconnection with the rising wave of anger at anyone laying a finger on Ken.]

You don't have to say why this guy doesn't trust anyone, but that doesn't give him the right to touch you. This can't happen again, Ken. [He pauses, aware of how unsatisfying that answer is.]

Will you at least tell me this guy's name?

[Ken stays quiet, long enough that it almost seems like he's not going to answer at all without further pressing. But he eventually moves, even if he doesn't speak at first, and pulls the blanket he was using over to spread it over Jaime's lap. It's clumsy, but it's a feeble attempt to get him to focus on returning and recovering.]

... One of my housemates. Tetsuo-san.

You-- you should rest, Jaime-san. Nothing's gonna happen to me right now. I promise. But you're exhausted.

[Jaime shakes his head. Ken's sad attempt to put a blanket on his lap is sweet, but even if he wasn't confronted with Ken upon his return, he wouldn't be able to rest, not yet. He needs to talk to Wally, he thinks, and he needs to talk to Traci. He can't even think about sleeping until he's at least let them know that he's here... and that someone else isn't.

Perhaps he can save interrogating Ken more thoroughly for later, but his worries clearly haven't abated.]

It's okay, Ken. I've got things to do before I can rest anyway -- and I'm fine, really. [Tetsuo... Jaime doesn't know much about him beyond the fact that he's heard the guy yelling over the network, but in a community where shouting over the network is a national pastime, he hadn't inspected it thoroughly. He regrets that now.]

...that explains why you're here, anyway. You know you can stay here as long as you need to, right? You shouldn't... you shouldn't go back to a place where you're not safe.

Thanks. I've been here for a few days.

[He asked Minato to let him, and then Minato had held him close. It was the first time Ken asked him for help like that, and he holds his breath for a few seconds again before he simply leans on Jaime, letting his weight rest on him.]

I want to go back, though. It's finally... [it's finally a home he found.]

I know. You like it there.

[That's one thing Jaime can't fix, though it reassures him to have Ken lean against him, same as usual. Jaime can't give him the same home that Nonah has. Jaime may not understand what it is about the place Ken had found there, but he knows that Ken finds it preferable to any other place, to living with him and Minato, or with Shinji and Akihiko, or with any other of his friends. Jaime could invite Ken to come live here permanently, and would if he considered it to be a viable option, but that's not what Ken wants.

A part of him wants to suggest that Tetsuo leave, but with the strange defensiveness Ken seems to be speaking of him with, he knows that that won't fly either. He doesn't know what this Tetsuo did to earn Ken's loyalty, but it's not something that's easy to undo.]

Does everyone else there know what happened?

Yeah. I don't know how, but Kaneda-san knew something was wrong and came home. Minato-san healed me after we called too, and Mr Bull couldn't have missed the mess. [It was in their living room and it's hard to miss a broken window and all that blood. The other things were easier to hide.]

Tetsuo-san isn't there anymore. I doubt he'd go back anytime soon. I just-- [he shakes his head, admitting a truth he never voices] -- blood scares me, actually.

Maybe you guys have some kind of connection. If you do, that's only a good thing.

[There are people who say that friends and family have a special bond, that you can get a bad feeling when someone's in trouble. Jaime's not sure if he adheres to that ideal, but if it does exist, and Ken is connected to someone who will take care of him?

They need all the help they can get when it comes to taking care of this poor kid. The fear of blood, however, takes Jaime a little off-guard. Not because it's a particularly unusual fear - if someone likes blood, they're either a vampire or have some really weird problems they have to work through, in Jaime's professional opinion - but because it's Ken saying that. They fought against Shadows all the time, right? Doesn't that come with an awful lot of injuries?]

I'm sure they've cleaned it all out by now, but I don't blame you for wanting to stay away for a little longer, [he says, far more open to the idea of Ken returning to Nonah 005 now that Tetsuo's no longer there.] I never knew you were afraid of blood, though. Is it for any reason, or...?

[A connection. That's a vague sort of thing Ken doesn't know what to make of, but he lets it settle for that. He knew that he and Kaneda had a strong trust, and sometimes they knew exactly what the other was thinking. Maybe it's something like that. A hunch.

But right now, he responds with a quiet 'mm' and scoots closer to Jaime, tugging up the blanket he dropped on him earlier and pulling it on himself too.]

It's not something like how people are afraid of ghosts or bugs. There's a lot of bad memories. [a pause, then...] I told you my mom died when our house got destroyed, right? It actually-- I watched it happen. She died right in front of me, and there was a lot of blood then. And in the Dark Hour, all water turns to blood too.

[Except for Minato, Chidori, and the other two Strega members whose deaths he didn't directly witness, every death Ken watched had been bloody. It's hard not to hate it.]

[Jaime remembers how, once upon a time, he would react to a kid Ken's age talking about being afraid of blood because of watching his mother's blood seep out onto the pavement below them with every inch of shock and horror that it deserves. It doesn't change the way his expression changes, softening as his brows knit together and his mouth pinches into a frown, because even the strange dullness he feels after having come home can't diminish the sympathetic sadness he feels at Ken's words, but he's no longer shocked by things like this.

In lieu of words, Jaime wraps one arm around Ken's shoulder, leaning over to rest his cheek against Ken's hair. He's not sure how comforting that is for Ken, but it's at least helpful for Jaime, helping him ground himself to the moment, to try and beat his tired brain into submission as he considers what the right thing to say is.]

I'm sorry, Ken. You shouldn't have had to see that. If I were you... I'd be scared of blood too. [It only ever results in tragedy for Ken. Jaime's grown up with the idea that blood is commonplace. It's hard not to with a nurse for a mother, matter-of-fact about any injury she sees no matter how frightening it looked to Jaime at the time (from soccer, mostly, because kids play it like a full-contact sport), but it hadn't quite prepared him for the things he's seen.

He thinks, for a moment, of he and the rest of the team walking upstairs and knowing something was wrong from the stink alone before running, turning the corner into a hallway painted with blood, the bodies of their teammates strewn across the floor.

That's a bad enough sight to traumatize an adult, as far as Jaime's concerned, let alone a little kid like Ken.]

But you sure haven't let being scared of it get in your way. Going out into the Dark Hour all the time must have been awful.

[He appreciates the arm around him a lot right now. It's warm, and it's a warmth that actually manages to soothe him. He presses himself closer to him, and Ken's hand grasps the end of his shirt in a familiar gesture. He can't put into words how much he missed Jaime. It's almost enough to blow away the negative emotions that had gathered around the incident; if Jaime is here, there's somewhere for him to go. There's someone who'll hold him like this, whose shirt he can always grasp.

He closes his eyes and focuses on the sound of him breathing.]

I didn't have a choice. Joining SEES came later, but seeing the Dark Hour happened right after it. Even if I stayed inside, I could hear people getting attacked. I didn't want to see something like my mom happen.

You always have a choice. Maybe it didn't seem like you had one, but that's just because you're made of the right stuff.

[Jaime's gone through the same thing. People ask him why he's the Blue Beetle, and his immediate answer is because I have to. If you have the power to help people and you squander it, what does that make you?

But he does have a choice. He could give it up. He could go back to being a civilian and staying safe, focusing on his people instead of the entire world. Just like Ken had a choice to let fear rule him, let other people like his mother die.]

So don't write it off as you not having a choice, okay? All it was was you making the right choice.

[Ken still doubts, sometimes, that it was the right choice. He knows it wasn't the best choice, and it wasn't for the greatest reasons. Revenge, and a sort of self-destruction. Sometimes he couldn't tell if he wanted to help those people or become like them. Like his mother? For a long time, that blood was all he could recall of her.

But it's no time to regret that now, and at this point, Ken doesn't regret that choice he made. He made his decisions, and his decisions led him here, and he only had to focus on the decisions that are to be made. And what pulled him to his feet so that he could look up like this had been the friends he gained here. For them, he would run through rivers of blood and miles of darkness.]

... Thanks, Jaime-san. That means a lot. You always put so much faith in me.

I don't put it in just anyone, you know that, right? Some people think that I do, but...

[Jaime lets out a quiet snort, a sound that's not entirely amused. He didn't put his trust in the Titans as much as he should have, and if he's being honest, he won't be able to do it going forward, either. He has faith in people to do the right thing sometimes, perhaps, but it's not blind faith. He's good at smiling at people and telling them that he believes in them, and he does believe that they'll do the right thing eventually.

That doesn't mean that he trusts them to do it right away, though. He's a walking contradiction in some ways, trusting them with himself, but not, perhaps, with others. Ken is one of the people that he has blind faith in. Maybe Ken won't always make the right decision, but he'll always, always have the right idea at heart.]

I dunno. They might just not know me very well. But you've earned it.

That's because you're nice to people. A lot of people make the mistake of kindness and trust together.

[That's the only think Ken can think of, and he thinks it's a fair assumption with someone like Jaime. People would call Jaime -- and the Blue beetle -- too trusting if they saw the way he talked about how the robber and storeowner from months ago will do the right thing, but someone who truly, blindly trusted anyone might have let them get away.

Jaime was kind. Kind and willing to forgive people and offer second chances, perhaps recklessly so (especially if the only risk was himself), but Ken did't think that necessarily meant he trusted people as easily.]

I know you don't, that's why it means a lot.

Yeah.

[Ken gets it. But then again, Ken probably gets him a little better than most people do, people who look at that steel wall of kindness and good etiquette, and don't bother looking at what's going on underneath. That's not necessarily how Jaime fashioned it purposefully, but it's his own way of holding people at arm's length until he finally warms up enough to them to trust them with how he really feels.

How he really feels is rarely surprising, but it's private anyway. That's just the sort of person he is.]

As long as you get that, then we're good. I just don't want you thinking it means less than it does. [And, of course, Ken doesn't.] It's not like it's the sort of thing you don't bother returning.

I'm not... I'm not nearly as kind as you are.

[He moves even close to Jaime though, and from there he looks up at him, saying with as much sincerity and honesty as he can muster up now, more than he already has tonight.]

But Jaime-san is someone important to me. I trust you, but no matter, I want to be on your side.

I think you underestimate yourself, [Jaime says, and he says it genuinely. There are several different types of kindness, and even if Ken errs on the side of tough love, it's no less important for it.

But then, Ken probably expected that sort of response out of him. Jaime sighs, shoulders sinking a little as he settles into his place here, leaning over to rest his chin on the top of Ken's head.]

...you're important to me too, kiddo. I'm glad we're always gonna be on the same side.

[... This is new. Ken blinks at the weight on his head, but it's only seconds before he relaxes into it, leaning back against him.]

But I swear I'll make you grow out of calling me that. We're only a few years apart!

Uh-uh. Five years apart.

[Jaime's a cheater. Biologically speaking, it's more like four years apart; he's actually going to be turning seventeen instead of eighteen, but it's so much more convenient to just roll with what's listed on his birth certificate. He'll take being legal sooner.]

That's more than a few. So that means I'm never gonna stop calling you that, 'cause no matter what, I'll always be that much older than you.

That's not fair. Then I can never beat you -- even if I'm younger I'm almost thirteen!

[Yes, kid. "Almost." Because "in six months" is "almost."]

DECEMBER CATCH-ALL

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