maskormenacelogs | I can move mountains, I can work a miracle [OPEN]

[The sad potato edges away from the side of the bed Komasan's prodding, putting more distance between him and the komainu. He's awake, clearly.]

[Oh gosh, he moved. Komasan lowers his voice to a hushed whisper.]

Monge~ He's dreaming, zura~!

[He says that in the same way people do when they see a dog twitch in their sleep. Oh how the tables have turned.]

'm not asleep.

[His head turns enough that one eye's visible. He's WATCHING you, Komainu.]

[If he had to describe the last week, he isn't sure if he wants to even begin. Riku has no illusions about the fact that he's pushed himself much too hard in the last.... bunch of fights he'd encountered. To top it off he had to go and sign up for a tournament in which people had permission to beat up on him even more, even though it wasn't like he was gonna take that lying down.

That being said, when he arrives, satchel hanging slung across his chest, he's looking kind of rough. Though he's not still covered in burns, and slices from who knows how many weapons, and general traversing-the-forest types of scratches, he does have a really nice collection of fading bruises going. Someone lets him in and points him in the direction of where Tetsuo is normally found lately, and he nods quietly, heading upstairs to search him out.

There's a cat sitting outside the door when he gets there, something that looks up at him with round eyes and lets out an expectant rumble. Well, it's rude to just barge in, cat, and Riku knocks on the door gently.]

... Your cat wants in.

[He can't follow Kaneda around all the time. When he's not, Tetsuo's back to being sprawled out on the bed being as melodramatically depressed as only a teenager can truly manage. He doesn't even move at the sound of Riku's voice - what's he doing here? Tetsuo doesn't know, and it doesn't really matter. People show up here a lot.]

's not my cat.

[He opens the door anyway, and the cat slinks inside. Now that he's opened the door he can see him lying there, though because the room is filled with the scents of so many different emotions, it's hard to really tell what's going on right this second.]

It begs to differ.

... Listen, I brought you something.

[Depression. Despair. Fear. Self-hatred, mingling with self-pity... There really is a lot of emotions. None of them good.

Tetsuo barely twitches when the door opens, shifting just enough for one eye to become visible when Riku speaks up. He's watching.]

[Yeah, there's definitely a lot of... darkness going on here. Which he can't really help fix, though you'd think he might be able to... absorb it, or something along those lines.

Maybe he needs to get Sora to come out here and shine some ridiculous light on him. Though that might be too much all at once.

Riku takes the movement as permission to step inside, digging in his bag. When he finds what he's looking for he moves forward a little, enough to toss it on the bedspread beside him. It's something similar to a DS.]

I'm assuming you're not up for the arcade, so.

[The device lands softly beside him. He doesn't immediately react.]

Not really.

[Only then does he shift around enough to pick the thing up, lifting his head to inspect it.]

[He watches this without moving, aware that anything out of the ordinary from his end may screw this whole thing up. He's aiming for quiet acceptance, not... violent disapproval. Though technically, right now he's not sure whether Tetsuo even has that capability.

He feels oddly like he's trying not to scare off a wild animal.]

... It's charged. So you don't have to wait for it.

[Ever since he returned, he's not had enough inclination to look at video games. Even that seemed like too much...

So his initial reaction is delayed, staring blankly at first. Then flipping it open.]

[after the jungle had receded, there was really only one person Hazel wanted to see. but she'd behaved and kept herself busy for the entire day of the sixth, personally circling the entirety of the city to make sure there weren't any wayward runes or totems or whatever shit style of magic Pan had been using left around.

everyone else was bound to be physically exhausted, so this was the least she could do - and with the Doctor waiting for her at Heropa 11, even Hazel can't deny that she was looking for reasons to stay out. in the end, it was probably better like that; Tetsuo had been through enough as it was, he didn't need to deal with her foisting herself on him before she's ordered her head a little. there was an awful lot in there that needed to be pushed back.

but a single day is really all that she can give herself, selfish bitch that she is. slipping into Nonah 5 is almost second nature, as is the paranoid glance around the house she gives after stepping through the doorway. she's not really sure how many encounters she's got the energy for today, and there's only one that really matters in her mind.

Hazel doesn't need to search around to know where to find him, and the closed bedroom door is a sure sign that her hunch was right. she knocks on it just once, a single solid rap that leaves her fist pressed up against the door long after the sound has receded.]

Hey, shitbag. We gonna play nice today?

[familiar words, but there's definitely no teasing spark in them today. Hazel just wants to announce herself in a way he'll recognize, fall back into something she knows to keep herself in line.]

[At the knock, Tetsuo sets down the communicator, paused on Pan's latest broadcast, and sits hunched on the bed, a very familiar red leather biking jacket slung over his hunched shoulders. Tetsuo's always been short, but he looks very small, emphasized by his posture; he's not even bothered to put his arms through the sleeves. He hunches over a little farther.

Hazel.

One of the first people he met here. One of his closest acquaintances. He'd trusted Hazel with what was probably his life how many times? Every time he got her to do that ... that thing she did, his powers went away. She'd never done it without his consent. Not once. She'd never said a word...that he knew about. Even when she'd decided to make his life a living damn hell, there was that underlying understanding. But... was there, really? Did he really know anyone at all?

There's nothing now she can do to him that hasn't already happened, but that knowledge does nothing to stem the painful twist of his stomach, or the fear crawling up through his chest. Trust was hard to come by, and when he thought about it... there was no reason, whatsoever, for anyone to associate with him. Not like this. He had no discerning qualities someone else couldn't do better. He wasn't strong. He wasn't all that fast. When he fought, he was at his best when working to get even with someone who already hurt him, not to keep himself safe.

Now, thanks to that broadcast, everyone knew just how weak and useless he really was. When he speaks up, there's none of the arrogant bluster or anger, no ego or false confidence. It's soft and heavy with raw pain; he sounds like he's either been crying or is about to start. Maybe both.]

What do you want?

[Because, in the end... everyone had to want something. He'd been so, so stupid to think otherwise.]

[it's not a surprise to hear him like that, but expectations don't do anything to stop Hazel's chest from seizing up. she knows that emotions behind that tone because they've walked alongside her nearly every day for a year. it's exactly what she never wanted someone else, let alone a friend, to feel. just another fuckup to toss onto the pile.

there's a big part of her that wants to see if the door's locked, or if she can muscle her way in if it is, but she refrains. even like this, she refrains from violating his privacy. it's a lot harder than their usual encounters, but Hazel knows she can do it. she kept herself from nulling while being killed, didn't she? this was nothing.]

I want to see you with a pulse again.

[what the hell did he think she was here for? but, again, this isn't a typical visit. things had shifted without either of theirs consent, and now she had to navigate this new terrain. maybe she should have waited a little longer to come here.

there's a wobble in her reply that betrays her own emotions, even as she speaks it to an unfeeling door. it's not enough to just know he was here and alive again - she had to see it with her own eyes, had to replace that last memory of him with one that wasn't a fucking corpse. she had to make sure that while he wasn't ok now, he would be eventually.]

[He can't open the door from a distance, and he doesn't really want to get up to do that. It's just one more surrender. Saying no would do.. what, exactly? He's not up for an argument. She'll do whatever she wants to. She always has.]

Fine.

[he doesn't need to tell her twice. the resignation is barely past his lips and Hazel's pulling the door open, motion swift but restrained. she can hide herself. she's done that all of her unlife, she can do it for something like this.

the damage this week has done to Tetsuo is immediately apparently whereas Hazel looks...about the same. almost the same, anyway. her bangs hide them pretty well, but the three angry gashes on her head are too huge to completely obscure. even sewn up as they are it's the sort of wound that would have a normal person dead or at least incapacitated, but they don't seem to slow Hazel down at all as she closes the distance between herself and the bed.

this is where her plan ends. she'd wanted to see Tetsuo so badly, and now she's standing here with him in her sights and absolutely no idea what it was she should say. everything sticks in her throat, piling up to create some kind of impassable lump that she can't just swallow away. what a terrible time to have regained her ability to cry.

and the only thing she can think, the one overriding thought that manages to beat through her emotional wipeout, is he's still here.]

Fucking hell, man.

[and with that strangled obscenity she drops quietly onto her knees beside the bed. for all her endless well of stamina, standing upright suddenly feels like an insurmountable task.]

[The only sign of life Hazel gets out of him is his head turning warily to watch her as she moves forward. That well of energy he'd been drawing from fails him now; he doesn't even edge away until she's almost on top of him. He should move. He should care she's right there; the sting of betrayal makes his shoulders twinge with remembered pain. He doesn't.

As she falls to her knees, he lets his head slide back to stare at the bedspread so she can only see the edges of his face in profile, eyes half open. But he's physically alive, if emotionally close to dead. His chest moves with every shaky breath he takes. Now and then, he blinks.

Hazel has always seemed weird, with lines permanently crisscrossing her body like stitches on a rag doll that she had no good explanation for. A long time ago, she said something about an accident.. Tetsuo couldn't make himself pursue after that. His own accident saw to that.

Now, she looks even worse somehow, but Tetsuo's gotten used to Kaneda's inability to feel almost anything he - anything that happened to him. That may have killed a normal person, but Hazel wasn't normal. None of them were.

Except him; the resonator is off his left wrist. There's no use for something that cancels pain if there's no powers to cause it.

They stay that way for a while, quietly, painfully existing in each other's proximity.]

[she's glad for the silence, in some strange way. it means that there's nothing to stop her from listening to Tetsuo's shaky breathing, not even her own. the quiet stretches out longer than any whole person would be able to bear, and Hazel just drinks in that glorious sign of life.

there's a lot she could talk about now, she reflects. Hazel has gone through this not once but twice now and knows a lot of the things that must be eating at him right now. but she can't open herself up that far - not so close to when she's lost Josuke (and she knows he's gone even if she'd determined to wait until the eighth for him to contact her, knows she's finally pushed him too far).

it wouldn't do him any good anyway. all Hazel was really skilled at was ruination.

but she does speak eventually, shifting just a little so that she's got a better look at that little sliver of his face. Hazel can't be honest about her past, but she's too tired to completely shield her own feelings. the words slip out, trampling over whatever it was she'd actually wanted to say.]

...thank you.

[Finally putting up a catch-all! Ken interactions for the rest of the month will go under here. Feel free to hit him up!

Ken will be fighting Peter Pan and will be unavailable in the house until after January 7. He'll also be available OUTSIDE of the house often, actually, so please feel welcome to simply find him walking Koromaru (and possibly Capsule) on any day.]

[Riku doesn't say anything, simply pads across to sit on the floor, back against the side of the bed. Naturally, he got himself one, too.]

There's no cartridge in it, I just loaded in some downloadable ones.

[He went back and forth between the two devices, setting things up and making the games the same.]

I got some with multiplayer, but some of them are just RPGs.

[It was a long walk back from Heropa. Funny, it didn't seem that long whenever he was on his bike. Ten minutes from wherever to the Porter, and then another to get to Nonah 05. But now--hell, he didn't even know how long it took. Longer than twenty minutes, that's for sure. Hours go by as he walks, sidewalk to sidewalk on the mostly deserted streets, through the Porter, and then down the blocks to the government housing of Nonah. The only landmark was a mangled and broken lamppost, the one dark area of the whole street as he turns the corner.

In his arms, a sleeping Kazu, wrapped up in the red blanket he'd salvaged from the junkyard with Koromaru. It'd been used to hold his bombs, and with its purpose fulfilled, it had a new one. To bring Kazu somewhere safe. Strange, how this had become so commonplace for him. He'd brought Tetsuo, Ken, Bull...everyone back to the house at least once.

His arms adjust themselves, shifting Kazu a little as he hoists him back up from slipping. It was still a good few blocks to Nonah 05, and it didn't look like Kazu was going to be any decent conversation, so he lets his mind drift off, thinking about the past few days, maybe even further back than that.

It was a long walk home, but it was easier when it was just you and your thoughts.]

Edited 2016-01-08 02:46 (UTC)

[It couldn't have been a little more past midnight when Kaneda got hom, Kazu in tow and Maya fussing over him as he entered. To say he expected Nonah 05 to be in one piece was wishful thinking. He'd expected broken plates, a shivering Maya clinging to him, something. No, instead he comes home to a clean house, Maya with green tea like he asked (he'd get to that eventually), and Tetsuo still in his room.

Which, after setting a sleeping Kazu on the couch for now, he immediately hikes up the stairs for. He doesn't remember the steps being this hard to climb, even remembering skipping a whole flight if he could get the right angle off the guardrail. It's a slow and painful ascent, and when he reaches the top, he has to wobble his way over to the left room.

The door to to the room opens. There's no knock, or paper slipped under the door, or cat scratching. Just a twist of the knob, although it's more hesitant than usual And when he peeked inside...

There he was. Tetsuo, legs crossed on the bed, jacket blanketed over thin shoulders, only illuminated by the glow of his comm. Eyes fixed on it like he'd wither away if he dare avert his gaze. He was as gaunt and thin as when he'd found him, and it was silly to think otherwise. It was only a few days, after all.

But he was alive, and that's all Kaneda could ask for. His footsteps are slow and sluggish, moving through the doorway and into the room.

He gets a few feet in, eyes cast forward and ready to head for the bed. Stopping only when there's--

The sound of a damn floorboard squeaking.

That does it. That stupid sound, just under the sole of his boot...the one thing that seemed to signal his presence in the room--no, Tetsuo's life. A fuckin' squeaky floorboard.

He has to fight back the tears, tilting his head up slightly to do so--just like he always did with Tetsuo. He had to be the strong one, he couldn't let it get to him like the night he'd brought him home. Even if he had words, his mouth wouldn't utter them. They seemed to want to say something else, his lips automatically forming to speak it--a word that had become so integrated into his life that the thought of never saying it again scared the shit out of him.

Amazing.

Just one word.]

Tetsuo...

Edited 2016-01-08 02:13 (UTC)

[Will edit with starter!]

[Hazel...doesn't actually live at Nonah 5. but she's going to be visiting Tetsuo so often during January that she might as well be for all that you're going to be sick of her dumb face.

anything you'd like to do for the month of January post-Pan plot, just slap that shit right in here! she'll mostly be hanging around Tetsuo's room, but she does wander. thankfully she won't eat anyone's food, but that's about all I can promise.]

[For a few days, he'd accepted his fate as Kaneda's .... whatever he was to him, hunched under his symbol as a means of keeping some distance between the world and himself. But he's not stupid; it can't last.

He sees it everywhere, as he wanders quietly down the hall. Everyone else has a life here. They have friends. They have a place. He doesn't HAVE to be a mind reader to know that he's the only one who shouldn't be here, and he's stayed too long already. They have lives to get back to, and he's got...

Swallowing past the hard lump in his throat, he can't even find the strength in him to be angry about it. This is just how it is. He gets it.

They had their last few bits, and he could even tell that Kaneda was trying to move on by pretending nothing was wrong. But one hasty attempt at begging Kaneda to rescue him one last time didn't mean anything more than letting Kaneda see just how much of a failure he was, letting him throw away the last of his pride. There's just too much history between them now, and the last of his hope it could genuinely be anything died with his heart.

And for what? 'You're going to get yourself killed,' Kaneda told him, a long time ago. And... he was right.

Remember what you gave up for it! Because it is NOT COMING BACK.

It turns out, Kaneda was right about everything.

Quietly, he takes off the jacket, gently hanging it up on a hook by the door. His hand lingers for a moment, not quite wanting to fully let go of the worn leather before he draws away. It's not his.

One last look back down the hall into the living room of Nonah 05 - the couch he practically lived on when he wasn't confined to a room, the TV, the kitchen where some of his and Amada's more dangerous altercations took place. The living room where he shattered a window and left him for dead. This place isn't his.

He picked his side, a long time ago. It wasn't the one he thought it was, but it's the path he's got laid in front of him now. All that's left to him is to try to walk it, or fall and never get back up.

He looks back down, and quietly opens the front door, closing it gently behind him.]

I can move mountains, I can work a miracle [OPEN]

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jan 10

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jan 7

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Ken // OTA

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Jan 6 night; Reserved for birds

Jan 6 night; Tetsuo

Jan 6 night; Rest of N5

Hazel "she doesn't even go here" Lockwood | ota!!

Jan 7, afternoon