![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I should be working on RCC right now
He kept staring down the street, watching the carts rattle by and the still-few shop fronts, still with that strange thoughtful expression, and she waited, watching him with her nerves on edge, waiting for something to happen, for the explosion that so often happened when he acted differently.
"You built a real city," he repeated softly for the third time, then suddenly his gaze shifted as he looked at her - looked, as though seeing her for the first time, as though he was trying to place who she was. She waited, her words caught in her throat by a fear she couldn't show. He'd always remembered her - remembered his crew, even if he forgot other people or events. What would she do if he forgot her...?
His next words came unexpectedly. "We aren't teenagers anymore," he said, still softly, and finally looked away again, back down the street. "We haven't been for a really long time, have we."
"You built a real city," he repeated softly for the third time, then suddenly his gaze shifted as he looked at her - looked, as though seeing her for the first time, as though he was trying to place who she was. She waited, her words caught in her throat by a fear she couldn't show. He'd always remembered her - remembered his crew, even if he forgot other people or events. What would she do if he forgot her...?
His next words came unexpectedly. "We aren't teenagers anymore," he said, still softly, and finally looked away again, back down the street. "We haven't been for a really long time, have we."
no subject
Leo risked a glance up at her, lowering his hands and lifting his head just a fraction - just enough to see. She wasn't crying; she looked reassuring. A little apologetic. She looked, in other words, as calm and collected as she always did.
And he... was not. But he wasn't going to break down, not completely, not now. (Not this time? Had he done this before?) He was... was he still insane?
Sitting up (he noticed himself unconsciously lean into Cya's arm and didn't stop himself), he took a slow, deep breath, exhaled just as slowly, and considered the question.
Cya had said he believed he was an anime hero. An action series, he thought, the kind that went on for years, like Naruto or Bleach. He could feel it when he tried remembering things - it was like looking out through someone else's eyes, watching himself doing things. Fighting monsters, fighting enemies, winning battles, losing battles, everything you'd expect in that kind of a series, and all with this same exaggerated distortion. Like a bad video filter.
And right now... right now he didn't. Everything looked real, felt real, felt... unpredictable. Separate from himself. There was no story, no character tropes, nothing. So did that mean this... all of this confusion and anxiety, this was sanity?
"If this is what being sane feels like, I can see why I ditched it." He looked at Cya again with a smile - a crooked, self-deprecating half-smile, but real.
no subject
He was asking questions he never would have asked. He was listening to answers. He was not shutting off.
Was he... coming out of it? For years after Addergoole, she'd thought it had been a temporary issue, the sort of thing that could be cured by getting away from the cause.
For a while, she'd thought he'd grow out of it. The kids were gone. Then Zita was gone, wandered off on her own. And... and Leo was still Leo. Maihallr was born... and Leo was still Leo. more coherent around her, but he'd always been a little bit better around the kids.
"If this is what being sane feels like, I can see why I ditched it."
She raised her eyebrows at him, not trying to hide the sudden urge to laugh, cry, and hit him all at once. "If this is you..." She swallowed. "If this is you being sane, Leo, don't you dare ditch it again."
Please?
no subject
That was possibly the worst part. He didn't know what had happened; why he'd, apparently, been crazy and delusional all these years, why he'd suddenly stopped, why he felt confused and miserable and sick. And if he didn't know that, how could he know if it would all start again?
And maybe... maybe everything would be better if it did. Don't you dare - Cya's words echoed in his mind. She didn't think it would be better, and he had no reason to believe his (flawed, deluded) perspective was any better than hers. Plenty of reason to believe the opposite. Either way, he still didn't know.
But he could figure out all those answers, he realized. Some of them he would have to ask Cya, but some he could figure out on his own; he just needed to... to think about it. His chest knotted up and he felt sick again. Thinking about it was bad, it was a bad idea, he didn't know why it was bad but if he knew anything, anything at all right now, it was that thinking about why he might have gone insane was a bad idea.
Breathe. Calm down. He shook his head, focusing on his breathing, on keeping calm, on being able to continue the conversation. "If I have a choice."
no subject
"This..." She frowned and tried again. She was cy'Drake, she should be able to put it in words. "...I don't know what happened, Leo." She knew when he'd broken, but she still didn't know exactly why. Eriko, of course, but not specifically why. She didn't know what had clicked that had led him to ask her if he was insane. "But.."
But what, that was the question. She hugged him sideways instead. "We'll figure it out." That, they could do. Boom could always figure out anything. She was pretty sure that was still true.
no subject
Instead, he nodded and managed to pull a faint smile out of somewhere, hugging her back. "Thanks."
He didn't want her to worry. Pretend everything is okay. He couldn't. Go someplace else. He could-- he could do that, if he just did it naturally. Take his leave, go somewhere else, then... well, he would figure out what he was going to do after he got there.
"But I shouldn't take up any more of your time." He stood, carefully, and glanced across the sofa towards his sword. "I..." Where could he go? What... aha. "I think I'll look around your city some more, then find a place to stay for the night."
She might offer to show him around, but he could think of plenty of reasons to refuse. She might even offer him a place to stay, but he could think of plenty of reasons to refuse that, too. It would be fine. (It wouldn't, not really, but at least it gave him something to do - something that he could figure out.)
no subject
"You have a house here, you know," she answered, not sounding - she hoped - nearly as concerned as she sounded. "I can show you where it is."
She wasn't sure what he was gong to do. He hadn't -- he hadn't gone away, but something still seemed wrong.
Wronger than Leo suddenly asking if he's insane?
That, she couldn't answer. She watched him, suddenly on edge. If he faded again... if he went insane again...
She'd lived with it this long.
"Look, come around once in a while? Promise you will?" It was purposefully vague. She added a little smile. "Mai likes you being around." And so did Cya, but that wasn't as important.
no subject
"I... no, I didn't know I had a house." He couldn't imagine it. Having a house of his own - a home, not at the Ranch (and without Zita, he thought with a painful twist in his chest).
He looked around at Cya's house, then at Cya, then down at his sword. It wasn't what he'd had in mind, but... it could work. (Maybe if he went along with it, she would stop worrying?) One more weird new thing wasn't going to make things worse than they already were... Hopefully.
Looking back up at Cya, he started to speak - how is Mai-chan? What's she up to? - but the words caught in his throat. He didn't want to see her - he didn't want her to see him. Not like this, not while he felt like everything could fall apart any moment.
"Sure, you can show me where it is." Her request that he visit remains notably unanswered.
no subject
(She remembered when he'd gone off to fight... whatever he'd gone off to fight. She remembered tracking him down. She remembered locking him in her barn. It wasn't fair, she supposed. It wasn't giving him freedom. Sometimes, she thought about just letting him go. The thought never lasted long.)
"It's a few blocks away." She gestured out the door. She'd spent a lot of time thinking about where to put Leo's house - and other residences. She wanted her friends, her crew, close. She didn't want to suffocate them or herself. "This way."
It was a nice house; all of the houses were nice. She'd built them herself after all. A low wall separated it from the neighbors, and inside she'd furnished it with minimal, Japanese-style furniture.
She'd been fine, leading Leo to the house, showing him inside. She was fine until she looked at him again. She swallowed hard around a lump.
"It's all yours. As long as you want it - no." She shook her head. "Forever. this corner of my city is yours."
Her city had no corners, of course. It was made in circles. It was a ridiculously poetic and inaccurate thing to say. But instead of trying to fix it, she took a step backwards. "If you want some time alone...?"
no subject
By the time they got into the house (his house), he felt like he was practically vibrating with the tension from holding himself together passably. And inside... He blinked in surprise, though he really shouldn't have been surprised. It wasn't as though his interest in Japanese... things was a secret. Almost self-consciously, he tugged at the sleeve of his kimono, looking around the room.
"It's nice." It wasn't the right thing to say. It wasn't even a particularly accurate thing to say. It was... more than he deserved, probably. (He was not thinking about that.) "Thank you."
He rested a hand on his sword hilt - not to draw it, but just... because it was there - and glanced around again before looking at Cya. It wasn't that he wanted time alone. What he wanted... well, he wanted Zita. He wanted a place to hide.
This was as good a place as any.
"I have a lot to think about." He pulled another smile out of somewhere, this one barely a shadow of the expression and probably exhausting his smile reserves.
no subject
She did her best not to be offended by the nice. She didn't even know if he was seeing the house, what he was seeing. She hugged him, briefly and carefully, and stepped back as quickly as she could without making it look quick. Her heart was not breaking. She didn't have room for melodramatic shit like that.
"I'll be around." She smiled crookedly. "It's my city, after all."
She hesitated for a moment in the doorway. "There's rice in the cupboard and canned veg, some whole spices. The milkman comes around once a week, if you want dairy."
She stepped out of the door, wanting to say something else, having nothing else to day. "...Take care of yourself, Leo, okay?"
no subject
Leo looks around at the room again; the house, built by Cya for him, furnished especially for him, stocked with food for him. He couldn't possibly deserve it. (They were crew, this is what crew did, wasn't it?) (But he couldn't possibly...)
It was, in short, entirely too much. Everything, not just the house, but the city, the realizations, the everything, it was too much.
You're being rude, whispered a corner of his mind, and it was true, and he didn't want to be rude, especially not to Cya, not after this, not while she was worried about him, but honesty, he thought, was beyond him at the moment. He looked back at the door just behind him, at Cya just outside, and on an impulse he gave an abrupt bow of gratitude.
"Kouei ni zonjimasu." His voice wavered as the words almost - almost - wouldn't come out. (She probably didn't understand them anyway, but that... that was less important at the moment.) Then, hurriedly before he broke down completely, he closed the door.
(Scene?)
no subject
no subject
Oh, I love this.
no subject