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[heartsink]

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[heartsink]

That's quite the predicament...

You're going as well, of course?

1/2

[velveteened]

Yes.

[velveteened]

Well, some of them definitely wouldn't want to go without me, so of course.

( though ruka of anyone has had the best insight to how he feels about the moon and how he's done up here, so the addendum is likely as pointless as it is transparent )

What about you?

[heartsink]

Of course. It doesn't seem like anyone intends to stay, really.

[ which is exactly why she intends to stay as long as possible... ]

[velveteened]

It seems like it'll be quiet here pretty soon.

( which is a totally normal comment to make and not at all reflective of what he thinks her tastes would be. )

[heartsink]

Wild canaries don't acclimate to cages well, after all.

[ totes normal ]

[velveteened]

Mm. So can you help me with the tea?

[heartsink]

Well, since you need the help so badly, I suppose I don't have a cruel enough heart to abandon you to face your troubles alone.

Where am I meeting you?

[velveteened]

What a relief! I was really worried.

The cafeteria, if that's fine.

[heartsink]

That's fine.

[ about five minutes later... ]

[velveteened]

( ...she'll notice a familiar figure standing at — holding, really — a few seats near the coffemaker, two steaming mugs sitting on the table. )

[heartsink]

[ as you do.

her greeting smile is weak, pulling more to one side than the other, and doesn't travel far into her cheeks. she doesn't wave, or call out his name as she approaches; ruka simply takes the saved seat, and the saved space, in as quiet arrival as possible.

she may not be sneaking, but that's only a matter of posture. the last thing she wants is to draw attention to herself right now...

her reasons may not be so clear, but the tension remains visible in her face. dark circles remain under her eye—her signature eye patch covers too much of that side to tell if the marker of sleeplessness resides on that cheek as well—and her face looks thin.

even pulling out the chair, her shoulders are as straight as a curtain rod, from which the rest of her hangs suspended like wooden blinds. ]

I'm a little surprised [ her voice is quiet, and dull. ] I almost thought the room would be flooded.

[velveteened]

As for that, ( brightly ) I'm a fast cleaner! The roombas helped a lot.

( what's left of them, anyway, between explosions (not pointing any fingers rosette christopher), mutiny, zombies, abuse by cats, and space-related mishaps. he can't say he's terribly sorry about their dwindling numbers; the mission with rose had been an amusing (illuminating) one, and after both he and gil managed to trip over them he's had a lot less love for them.

her exhaustion, her tension, how much even smaller than usual her presence is — it all, of course, goes noticed, and it also all, of course, goes without comment. if there's a faint narrowing of eyes, a brief tug downward to one corner of his lips, it's all transitory and quickly sink beneath his smile. )

I'll miss them when we leave.

( he has a seat as he says that, pulling the chair closer to the table as he does. one of the last times — or maybe it was the last time — she saw him was a dark night (aren't they all, here) or perhaps morning given the ridiculous time it had been. it's only in retrospect that he can admit he probably hadn't looked any better than she does now; it'd been a difficult transition to the moon, complicated by a difficult transition back to ordinary living after everything the united earth did. things aren't exactly easier by now, but certainly more bearable for a number or reasons. )

[heartsink]

Those little vacuum-robots? [ not exactly the assistance she would expect, even in jest, but it wasn't like she knew much about his day-to-day existence, anyway. her predictions could only bear so much weight without something to support them.

when she reaches for the closer of the two mugs, a keen eye might notice something missing—the heavy golden bracelet, a constant an accessory to her appearance (though less ostentatious as her eye patch), is absent from her narrow wrist.

but for as much comment as her appearance invites, she doesn't volunteer answers—not even when she catches when and where his eyes focus, the way thought pulls at his face in silence. ]

You won't take them with you, to Earth?

[ or is it returning to his own world, and his own time, where he assumes he'll be able to miss anything? ]

[velveteened]

( he nods enthusiastically at the first question, helping himself to his cup of tea while he does. the absence of the bracelet doesn't go unnoticed, though the immediate thought is more along the lines of something is different — and isn't there usually something there, ones to puzzle over as they continue to speak. )

Ah, I doubt it. I don't think they'd mix well with snow, and Gil hasn't liked them very much.

[heartsink]

... I suppose you're right. [ The answer she finally settles on, though not without second and third thoughts. Jabs like how sad, or how easy it must be to abandon the things that are not useful to you, seem too cruel to say. Maybe not in another circumstance, at least for her to say, but there's no reward to spitting venom when it's not her in danger.

Besides, he might read too much into it & mdash;the way she is now. ]

Friend of yours?

[velveteened]

Gil?

( it's a funny thing about being here, that people can know one of them and not the other. it was more of a difficult thing before gil's arrival, but by now it's a little bit of a curiosity of their position here. )

That's right! He's my best friend. ( which may seem a funny thing too, one to say of someone ten years his senior — but that'd only be if ruka knew him. ) He fusses a lot, and he thinks they're too dangerous to keep around.

[heartsink]

Dangerous? [ Incredulously spoken, like the way a lightbulb might be dangerous, or a wool blanket. ] I think that surpasses fussing.

[velveteened]

He's always like that! I thought he'd like them since he likes cleaning, but they're easy to trip over.

( also the cats like riding around on them which terrifies gilbert )

[heartsink]

[ how pawsitively terrifying. ]

That's too bad, then. [ Another quiet pause, sipping from her mug — it's not bad tea, and she's certainly had better, but it's nice, having it like this.

And at least there are no hearts in these cups. ]

He's someone you knew before you arrived here, right?

[velveteened]

( it's a catastrophe!! )

Yes. We've known each other a long time.

( a long time isn't quite the inflection on the word, but it's weighted nonetheless. gil had promised to be an unwavering presence more than once, and while it's still a concept oz struggles with believing in, it's not for any fault on gil's end. )

[heartsink]

It must be nice.

[ A weight she acknowledges, but cannot carry. And though it would be easy for the words to be bitter, self-pitying, they remain soft as ever. A best friend that you've known a long time -- she's never had anything like that. She had her twin brother, back in Neo Domino, but there is a difference between siblings and best friends. They didn't even get along most of the time, and they spent much of it roaming between the forests of guilt and resentment, anyway. Besides that,
the brother that had joined her in the City had gone back, and grown up without the her that'd done the same. It was not the separation of universes that grieved her, but of years. She can pretend to see his face in the mirror, but she hasn't beheld it since when she could see with two eyes.

Best friends in the City were short, fleeting things: a year here, a year there. And then, her emotional stopgap, the important person she left behind... well, there was no hope there, was there? She knows she's never going to see him, the one who she's needed so much, ever again.

Her fingers pick at her bare wrist in absent habit, seeking affection no longer present. ]

But a little risky, too.

[velveteened]

( he looks up, surprised. the more cynical comment that comes is fairly expected, but the softer sentiment before catches him off-guard. it's easy to buy into her persona sometimes, genuinely believe she may care for nothing and no one, when in reality it's perhaps not so surprising, even coming from her.

is there really a person who can stop from hungering for affection?

her gesture gives away the change he'd more nebulously noticed previously, the ah right there was a bracelet. his eyes narrow slightly, briefly, but that's all. )

Isn't it a lot risky? Something like that.

( a little bit for her sake, and a little bit a slip. )

the first time I wrote this I got halfway through with "fabulous" instead of "familiar"

[heartsink]

The stakes aren't always so high. Someone who would pay any price for a familiar face -- with a heart so willing, no risk would seem worth considering.

[ her plucking fingers cease their motion, laying flat down, slipping to the table when she lifts her mug again. ]

Or if it's someone they can't live without... but, the day that person vanishes would be so much more painful, wouldn't it?

[ when, she says, like it's the most obvious and unchanging thing. the earth orbits the sun; the moon orbits the earth; the ones you love will be lost to you. ]

And worse than that, it's never promised that the person who wears their face is the one you remember, or the one that remembers you. That's the worst of all.

At least, [ added with the slightest shrug off her shoulders, raising the mug the rest of the way to her mouth, to scald the bile of her poison words from her own tongue, ] that's what I think.

LMFAO

[velveteened]

( but they are always so high, he thinks, even if in different ways. there's no fear of someone vanishing the way they can here, be here one day and gone the next, returned to far-away places with no memory of anything that happened, it's true. but there's no 'absolute,' either, is there; something that exists one day can be gone the next, product of a misunderstanding or a straight lie or simply —

('i'd be happy if he hadn't been born.'
'don't touch me; you're filthy.')

— simply, being asked to believe in someone or in their feelings seems almost too much to ask or hope for. even with stakes that she doesn't think are so high, he couldn't bring himself to believe in even one person entirely, and isn't that the mark of a coward? )

No, ( says levelly, ) I think you have a point. Ah, for people who've been here as long as we have — and longer — we've all seen scenarios like those happen.