maskormenacelogs | While the lines on the wall start to fray

...

[It'd been the first time Tetsuo had left without his jacket.

The worst part was, it wasn't for the reason anyone would have wanted. Kaneda had seen him wear it all the time, sleeves probably too small for his own arms now, and maybe a little tight in the chest area. But it fit Tetsuo now...and it held him whenever he needed that security.

Now it was just a jacket in his fingers. And for the first time, it's almost as if Kaneda doesn't even recognize it. The words on the back seem almost...foreign. Like he's holding onto this until Tetsuo gets back. Like it's not even his jacket anymore. Thumbs brush over the logo--the capsule still brightly pigmented on the leather despite what it had weathered through.

It's a bit ironic, isn't it?

Tetsuo always told him that the Capsules didn't exist here, and he was right on that. They didn't, no matter how many times Kaneda lay awake in bed trying to wish his friends here. They'd never come. If they hadn't in the year he'd been here, they certainly weren't going to show up now. Kai...Yamagata.../Kei/.

They were all waiting for him. Them.

And yet right now he can't even bring himself to wear his own jacket.

Fingers slide to the shoulders of the garment, pulling his pinkies in to slot the sleeves inside and tuck them in, folding it in half soon after. The logo lay face up as he goes over to Tetsuo's desk, immensely more cluttered than his own as he brushes some spare parts aside.

Dark eyes heavily weigh on it as he sets the jacket down right where it should be--waiting for Tetsuo.

He couldn't stop him if he tried.

And going after him would only prove Pan's point once more. That Tetsuo would collapse without him. So all he could do was look for clues. Play this under the radar.

His hand slips around that comm, flopping into his rolling chair as he browses the conversation.

Saving it.

Sending it.

Locking it.

This time...he'd be there for Tetsuo.]

When Daryl showed up that the house Tetsuo was staying in, he had not expected to find a bike. It was a pleasant surprise. More so that it was so well kept and clearly had a lot of custom work done. And not just the paint job. Though that was the most obvious. He'd never kept up with Kawasaki's much, but the Zephyr series was well known enough. At least in his world. Seemed it was here, too. The seat sat a little low for his personal taste and the windshield was a bit of a waste of time unless you road real low to the gas tank, but hell if it wasn't pretty.

He got a bit distracted as he started to check it out, forgetting for the moment that he'd been intending to go knock on the door and see if the kid was home.

The door slams open of its own accord, the typically moody teenager thumping his way down the front steps with more force than his 5'4" frame should allow. He keeps his eyes down, not really paying much attention, slinging a bag over his shoulder as he wanders down.

There are no garages in Nonah houses. While the shed in the backyard provided just barely enough room for him to shove his bike in there, it was annoying at best to work around. So, if he's just going to be in and out, he just doesn't bother. The bike can stay out by the road in that case; he's branded it to where no one's going to take it.

As his foot hits the bottom step, he looks up... and pauses. There's some guy by his bike, clearly taking way more interest in it than he likes. He can tell there is something familiar about him. Where does he know him from? But that's far from his first question.

"The hell are you doing?"

The MOST important thing is, this guy better not even think about messing with his bike!

Daryl's back was to the kid when he came out. The wings on his vest (dirty and almost as black as the leather at this point) probably the most memorable thing about him, assuming they were remembered at all. He stood up from where he'd been crouching to get a better look at the engine where the front guards folded over to protect from splashing mud and water, and turned around. His hands slide over the back of his pants in a manner similar to how Rick would rub at his pockets before his hands settled on his gun. But Daryl's hands just fell back down to his side and tilted his head toward the bike, curiosity and surprise on his face.

"This yours?"

Some might not remember emblems, but Tetsuo wasn't among them. Where he grew up, it was vital to know who held what signs, individually or collectively. One's emblem was one's identifier, and anyone who wore them was automatically included in his mind as someone to keep an eye out for. You didn't just wear a mark for no reason.

Those wings... where had he seen that before? He picks up the pace some, stalking towards his bike and the guy.

"Yeah, that's right - that's mine!"

And then it hits him. All it takes are a few linked memories. Wings sprouting to block, a quick escape... his own voice going oh, yeah, the wings guy. He pulls up short, staring harder at the guy's face. Wait a minute. He might know this guy.

Shit.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Came to see you," he said simply and took a step away from the bike. Turned to look at it again as he did so, one hand coming up to scratch at the scruff on his chin.

He wanted to ask if the kid maintained it, but he had something else to do first. The hand at his chin dropped to his side once more and this time dug into his front pocket. He pulled out a key and held it out, "It's for the house I'm assigned to. In case you need a place to lay low or whatever."

He'd been expecting another speech. Something about family, reminders of who decided to up and leave him all over again. Already, Tetsuo's gearing up the argument in his mind, his eyes narrowing to watch every movement Daryl makes. While he's a telepath, he isn't always reading people - and that's never more clear than now.

His face blanks in confusion. He's not supposed to get out a key. What the hell's he think he's going to do, go after his bike?

But before Tetsuo can say anything, Daryl explains. The last of his totally prepared and well reasoned arguments vanish from his mind, leaving him at a complete loss for words.

"... what?"

Daryl's gaze dropped and his head did one of those awkward twitches like he suddenly felt under intense scrutiny. But he left his hand out and, with it, the key.

"I don't know how often you get to De Chima, but the government put me in number eight," he went on, figuring that was what Tetsuo was confused about. "I got roommates so if you do need to use it, try and be respectful of their shit. It's the best I can do until we get enough money to get a place for everyone. You'll get a new key then."

Edited 2016-08-16 01:53 (UTC)

De Chima. Tetsuo isn't one prone to wandering, especially with his particular antigovernment ideas and status. In truth, Tetsuo's only been there once, so there's no knowledge of the city and only one memory. That was where the Swear-In was. The one that provided the final hammerblow to break his head, and everything else. That's where Ken almost killed him, and Kaneda tried to finish him off.

If there's a hell in America, it isn't Marutia Falls. Not to him.

And it's August...

His eyes widen a little more as a small chill runs through his veins despite the summer heat. Then he lowers his head, listening. Tetsuo half hears what Daryl's saying, but every sentence is paired with ...

"... I don't go to De Chima."

The bluster and challenge is gone from his voice for the moment, leaving a quiet mumble behind.

Daryl looked up, blinked a couple times in confusion. The way the kid said that made it clear something terrible had happened to him there. And as much as Daryl wanted to pry, he wasn't sure he should. Not yet. Except that all the properties he'd been looking into were on the outskirts of the city and travel from there to the porter cities meant going through town.

His hand dropped to his side finally, the key going with it. If the kid didn't go to De Chima, then the safehouse there wasn't exactly a decent option.

But he couldn't just let it sit like that, either. Not when most of the current plans that people knew were for the group eventually having a safer place to live out there.

"What happened?"

Crouching on the glass floor between the roof and the floor below, watching. Gas fills the room below. Screams follow. Then it all shatters...

Tetsuo looks back up, but he doesn't answer. This guy's like Rick, right? He wants to know, maybe he'll leave it be with a non-answer.

He shrugs half of Kaneda's jacket off of him, pulling the long sleeve from his right side to leave his arm exposed. The lower arm's a twisted mess of scar tissue, similar but somehow more torn than spray from a shotgun would give, with strange markings surrounding it. It's not centered; the damage is less on the outside of his arm.

He pulls his shirt up to reveal where the rest of that shot went.

It really wasn't a shotgun blast. It was a bunch of scrap metal and bits pulled free from architecture - nails, shreds of steel and iron, screws, bolts - collected together and fired at him by someone's power. There's odd scar patterns - small fractal patterns, like frost - collected around it, spidering out a little further across his midsection and wrapping around his arm. Electricity scars, focused around the area. Whatever happened, it was severe, bizarre, but he also managed to survive it.

After a pointed stare, he drops his shirt, moving his arm back to find the armhole of that jacket again.

Daryl's chin lifted and his shoulders dropped. Back stiffening at the sight. He blinked hard, he blinked often. And he blinked so much he had to look away because all the blinking was to try and fight the sudden surge of emotion. He had his own scars, but nothing like that. Nothing that...

He pressed his lips together and nodded. Breathed in deep. Gulpped. Breathed in again.

"Okay."

So as much as Daryl liked De Chima, how it reminded him of home. It was out. At least anything real close. Nonah wasn't too far a drive. Virginia and North Carolina were neighbors, shared a border. If he could find a property in the middle ground between them, then people would have the choice of driving north to De Chima or south to Nonah for whichever porter they preferred to use. It'd be a little further out than planned, but they could make it work. And being further from the center of a major city was not a bad idea if things started to go belly up and they all needed to hunker down for a while.

Finding the right kind of property might be harder. He could do it, though.

"Okay," he said again. And at that point he put the spare key back into his pocket. Pulled out his other key ring instead and took a different one off. Held that out, "This one's for Carl's dorm at the Xavier School. It's in Heropa."

And it was obviously Daryl's personal - and only - key.

Tetsuo had almost assumed that was it. He'd be out, he'd be right, and he'd be left alone all over again. He knew who his family was.

Family only left, anyway.

But that's not what the man does. He instead seems to have a reaction that Tetsuo again hadn't been expecting. Derision, or incredulity, or fascination with it, sure. He could shoot that down easily and throw it back in his face. But... why did he..? Tetsuo's watching him closely, but he can't understand. This isn't the mutual survival on the streets pact he had with Rick to start with. This isn't an agreement. Almost no one, ever, reacted that way.

Then again, he also showed that to pretty much no one. So he really has no room to compare.

Okay. That's it. Just... okay? He mouths the word, though it's not the same one Daryl would be using.

This isn't working at all, but now Tetsuo's even more lost than before. It's starting to really sink in that Daryl means it. He can feel that much; it's the same kind of sincerity that he could always feel off Rick. The kind that scared him as much as it drew him in like a moth to a flame.

There shouldn't be sincerity. They met as enemies first. Daryl has no one to impress now; Rick's gone. That idiot can't really.. mean this...

But he does.

Not only that. He volunteers Carl's room without even asking or hesitating, in a move that Tetsuo would never be able to anticipate or comprehend. Carl had said something similar to him before. The key dangles in front of him for a moment as he stares at it, then back to Daryl. Daryl doesn't seem to take the offer back. He can't imagine ever using this. He can't imagine ever needing this, either. He's fine without them. He doesn't trust them, anyway. Or like them.

...

That's clearly why he ends up finding himself warily holding out his left hand after a pause.

CATCH-ALL

After Tetsuo's departure

Around the 20th

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23rd

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