icarusalsoflew | 003. and in every raindrop... // open post.

[ And he's sitting down and setting out food on both his plate and yours. ]

I'll have whatever you're having.

[ Because, yes, he knows he will likely need it. Dinner can only last so long before you both start talking about the thing that you need to discuss. ]

Yamazaki it is.

[Because he's pretty sure you haven't tried Japanese whiskey yet, and it is perfect for situations like this.

He pours for you both once he has the bottle and the glasses, and then it's down to business with that food.]

[ He's unsurprised by how great the food is ( he trusts your taste ) and he takes his time sampling everything before he helps himself to second servings.

That whiskey is also pretty amazing, though his first taste of it had him leaning back as the burn went down to settle in his stomach.

Yes, that's your boy taking a breath before he reaches for the water. ]

[...And stop right there. He'll pour for you. This is his house, after all, and he IS Japanese that way.]

At the risk of sounding creepy -- [Not that he actually cares, but it does need to be said] -- I could watch you eat any day.

[He could watch you do anything, really. You're horrible.

(And yes, this is him trying to dispel at least a bit of the tension here.)]

[ He sees what you're doing and he's all the more grateful for it.

He's also going to catch that and of yours and press a kiss to the center of your palm before he pulls back and takes a drink from his glass. ]

So you mean what I've been doing all this time counts as creepy?

[ Teasing, just as he's rubbing light circles over the back of your hand with his thumb. ] Because, you know, I do that. Watch you eat.

When I can, anyway.

[Chuckling at that, then withdrawing just to fetch his cigarettes.]

Then I suppose we can be creepy together.

[Couples are more than allowed to be weird!]

[ Yeah, chuckling now. ]

I am oddly okay with this.

[ The conversation is due. He knows that much.

He has absolutely no clue how to start though. ]

[And he won't press. He'll wait for whenever you're ready.

While he's doing that, of course, he's cleaning up for the both of you, and filling both of your glasses again.]

[ There's a faint smile on his mouth before he goes for his cigarettes.

He doesn't light up right away, and he's playing with that lighter again. ]

...I don't know where to start.

You could pick up where we left off earlier.

[That seemed like the most logical place to start at, at any rate.]

[ A soft, wry laugh. ]

You mean the part where I had to say no to the idea of sleeping with you because it wouldn't have been you?

[ He's not trying to make light of it because it doesn't matter -- on the contrary, the subject's a complicated one that he's not quite sure how to handle. ]

[Don't worry, love: he gets what you're trying to do. People aren't difficult to read for this one, and he's especially attuned to the minutiae that makes one Joshua LaRue who he is.]

Well... yes.

[There was probably a lot more to talk about outside of how weird and wrong and possibly sad that was for Josh, wasn't there?

And, unsurprisingly, the other in this one's head is quietly withdrawing to the recesses of his vessel's brain. He'll deal with Death later, or drag him out accordingly. It all depends on how this talk goes down.]

[ He falls quiet at first, brows knitted together as he works out what to say next, because he's replaying that night and how he'd felt, how he'd tried to calibrate and then reassure that while yes, the proposition had startled him and made him uncomfortable, it didn't have to be too big of a deal.

Abstract being or no, the look on your face animated then by Brother Death, had looked pretty human. ]

Is Brother Death alright? [ It's probably not the question most people may think to ask -- but most people didn't spend several days in the company of Death, watching him be around but keep himself separate, with the exception of well. The only time he could think of was in Russua and Yulia.

There's a wan and quiet laugh as he reaches for that glass of whiskey, knocks back half of it and looks off to one side. ] No, um, sorry. Forget I asked. That's a weird question.

[Honestly? He isn't surprised in the slightest that you'd ask that, nor does he find it weird. Many members of the "old guard" (i.e. the vets, the Kings, his own people in Zangyaku) were acclimatizing themselves to viewing Brother Death as yet another comrade, a fellow Keeper in the Vigil. While that wasn't entirely accurate, it wasn't like one could say that He was still exactly the way he used to be before the Godslaying Ceremony. Before Fate bound Him and an unknowing Japanese boy together.

He reaches out and snags your wrist, in an attempt to get you to look back at him.]

It's not a weird question. [Saying that softly.] He's been off, actually, ever since he relinquished control to me.

[ You catch his wrist and he looks back at you before he turns his palm over to that he can tangle your fingers together.

He's also quiet for awhile, as he mulls that response over in his head, and then: ]

He said he was curious. [ There's a brief flash of discomfort on Josh's face, as if he's voicing out something that was spoken in confidence. ] He said you couldn't properly... [ how exactly did he put it? ] That you couldn't explain to him the concept of desire.

[ He's averting his gaze at that. Sorry, Brother Death. ]

I really can't, given the fact that desire in itself is sort of a "know by doing" thing. Can you blame a guy for not wanting his big brother peering over his shoulder every time he makes out with someone?

[Or sleeps with someone?

Yeah.

That would be kind of awkward, even for somebody like the Blade King.]

He's also never dealt with emotions before, at least not until he and I really ended up becoming One. He's the End: impartiality, along with everything that follows that, is the only suit he ever really had.

[ He listens to you put that last part in that way and nods.

He totally understands the first part. But he's never had to worry much about his own "tenants" prodding into his business. Coach, he has confidence, would turn the other way. And he's come to the conclusion that there's really no point in hiding anything from Makoto. ]

He stuck it out with us at the Tower -- Brother Death, I mean.

Stayed with us the whole time. [ Pausing at that. ] But he didn't really interact with us much. Not after that first night.

[Can I...?

(does it matter?)

He is, at that moment, reminded of a sullen child. Who would have thought, right?

Yes, it does.

(...)

That is why Hikaru's response to you was delayed, LaRue: he had to check in with his passenger upstairs, and he didn't bother hiding it this time.]

I think being in close proximity with all of you and having you tell him, flat out, that you could not do what he asked reminded him of something.

[ What you'll see then, from this one, is the way his eyes drop and slide away, the subtle shift of his torso as if he is about to lean back into that chair before he catches himself and remains sitting up straight, and the breath that he quietly exhales through the gap there between his lips.

There is no doubt that the answer he would have given Brother Death would have always been "No," but Josh does feel bad that it had such an adverse effect that the abstract being who had been in their company for some time had, in fact, chosen to hold himself apart from them.

He's remembering the offer to join them, you see, and the way he'd simply moved away from all of the Hounds. Josh is also remembering the end of their part of the Hour, which he has deliberately decided to keep to himself.

The tell for that is the subtle twitch of his brow, and the subsequent schooling of his features as he shelves the memory of being the last one standing on that field, out of all the people in Wave 6. ]

What was it?

That none of you are really his. That he doesn't actually have anyone.

[Leaning back, taking a drag.]

Companionship, or the lack thereof, only becomes a problem when you start caring.

[And Death has started caring. So.]

Oh.

[ Huh. That is... a problem... right? ]

But we-- [ he cuts himself off at that. Because saying that they tried to include Death in their interactions sounds terribly trite. Even if they had, in their own way.

Shaking his head now. ] Sorry, forget I said anything.

[A small smile, but it disappears the moment he's bringing that cigarette back to his lips.]

Go ahead, Josh.

[Even if he has an idea of what you might have tried to say. They need to talk this out, and Death needs to hear it.]

[ A shake of the head at that. The press of his lips together, an indicator that he's uncomfortable with this enough as it is. ]

It's okay. It's nothing.

[ Lighting up a cigarette now, that frown still between his brows. ]

Edited 2014-06-05 11:35 (UTC)

Josh.

[He says it as gently as possible, but the look on his face might tell you that he has no plans of letting this go. He normally would.

Normally.]

[ He smokes through about a third of that cigarette before he exhales something that sounds like a sigh. His gaze is still averted, because this is hard.

They tried. But they also didn't know how to move -- at least, that's his take on it. He can't really speak for the rest. He tried. But the conversation had ended on an awkward note and it's not like he could have taken what he said back, because it wasn't somethung he could give into anyway. ]

We tried. [ Wait. Amending that. ] We wanted to anyway -- I did. But we didn't know how to move. I didn't know how to move.

And it wasn't even that it was awkward for me. I let that go right away. He asked, it just wasn't an option.

[ Leaning back now, and adding softly: ] Yulia had better luck.

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