you know the thing from httyd where hiccup just kind of bonks his head into toothless's and stays there? that's what's happening. ]
...it means I wish you had the chance to tell us things yourself instead of this place doing it. I wish you hadn't lived that kind of life. I wish you had been treated kinder for things that weren't your fault.
[ he could stand to explain literally anything but that cycle of thought has been looping his head for a while today. ]
I wish it were easier to believe things could be better without second-guessing all the time, I guess.
[ooooh, oooh. oooooh, this feels bad, it's scary. it's very, very scary, when he tells her that, because nobody tells her that and then stays.
you changed the way you see me, right? and then he pulls a sword on her, and she is still so very raw from the last person who said he understood, and that he wished the world wasn't so cruel. nico bonks her head with his own, and she's so stiff it actually kind of hurts.]
[ ...he doesn't want to fight with her. so he lowers her again to settle in his lap and continue petting her slowly. it's fine. maybe he said too much. ]
I know. [ he says, but in the tone of "I know this is a defense mechanism, I know it hurts to think about, I know you don't want to admit to otherwise." ] Sorry. What did I miss today...?
[ easy as always. giving her an out if she wants. ]
[there's something fighting in her, with this. because of all the people who have understood so far, nico has understood the most. her fur is bristling and standing straight up, but she's not angry, she's frightened out of her mind. maybe it's the same, for her, anger and fear all mixed up in one.
he gives her an out. and she should take it, but - there's a part of her, that despite everything, doesn't want to let it go. because whatever he experienced, it probably hurt. and she cares a little bit too much about him to just leave him floundering.
she kneads at his clothes, trying to steel herself. just - act normal. just be normal. even though you hate it.]
Nothing. [she says, and then, tersely:] Can you just tell me what happened? Because whatever I don't hear I'm going to - make something up. And it'll be worse. Whatever it is that happened to you because of me.
[ he lets her knead at him and he tries not to crowd her with his hands as he thinks of how to begin. ]
...Nimona, I don't even know if it was because of you. I don't think it's something you caused. [ there's a difference. ] But I think...even early, I think I knew it had something to do with things that happened to you. I didn't understand how, and I didn't want it to be. I was hoping that the house we woke up in was just a safe place for you instead of somewhere to hide.
It probably wasn't. [ he'll play along. ] But it would have been a nice place for you if people left it alone. Pink. Very pink. But comfortable...a bed, a couch, little furniture and things that would make it easy to invite friends if you wanted. The little cat that lived there seemed to have a lot of them that cared about her. We found a lot of pictures.
[ but he frowns. ]
...but I think something happened to her. Someone...didn't want to try to understand her. They just wanted to use her. So we left her house to try and understand what happened. [ ... ] Reigen went to check on the town's post office. And we went to find Chiemi's house.
The raccoon at the door gave us a list of tasks, but I think we ignored him.
she curls up in a ball. she doesn't want to hear about a magical world where everybody liked her and she had a nice home with a nice bed. especially if it went south.
she also doesn't want to think about raccoons, so:] Did you find anything at Chiemi's house?
...a gun that was supposedly used to kill Norma. And a file of stuff that Will found that Chiemi and our friends were working on, probably. About a director who was changing things in this little town. Outsiders weren't welcome. She demanded a lot of money from everyone who lived there in order to get rid of a creature that she thought was a problem.
...but people protested. Either they didn't have the money, they couldn't meet the deadline or they just didn't want to. Anyone who went against the director was dealt with the same way. Mouth sewn shut, and instructed to be a good neighbor. Keep your head down. Smile and wave. Don't cause a scene.
[ he sounds pretty venomous about that, actually. ]
There was a note about Norma's death. How the gun was found in Chiemi's house, and how the villagers drove her away. She left behind another note apologizing she couldn't finish what was started.
...if there was anything else, I don't know, because the house suddenly blew up because Rita bombed us. [ he does not mention her (probably) blood sample. ]
She bombed us and she ran away. [ angy!! it does sound like rita is the thing so. ] The whole thing collapsed on us. We probably should have died then, but we didn't. So we had to get ourselves out of the debris and chase after her.
Yeah. [ staring into middle distance. ] She kicked us, and then Datz and Hung showed up with baseball bats so we ran until we found Reigen at the post office. There was...this whole main street area with shops. The post office was there...Club Apollo. Di Angelo Attire. And a place called Ballister's. Plus the museum that was totally taped off.
[hmmm... she's not a fan of this choose your own adventure
she's quiet for a minute, and then:] Where'd you go? [she doesn't like the sound of the attire place, but. they're kind of both batting back and forth in terms of i'll let you talk about what you want to - even if this is making her jittery.]
[ she's not a fan, said nimona, played by flurry, cyoa runner.
but you know... ]
Where do you think? It had my name on it, and I'd fooled myself into thinking it'd be fine if I pretended it was mine. [ ... ] Norma's ghost went that way, too. So we wanted to follow her. She disappeared once we were inside though. Reigen...I think saw everything, first. For what it was. I didn't at first, and Will saw it all last. But before...it was a cute shop.
[ vaguely nostalgic. ]
Clothing store, you know? Skull wallpaper, chainmail, all the classics. The owner did a good job decorating. It suited her.
[ i checked and he mentioned his sister but not. this sister. he didn't specify and that may bite him in the ass in a sec. ]
Yeah. I didn't see her at first until my vision cleared. The...true nature of that shop was kind of awful? But also sort of familiar. There were...corpses. People who were thrown there and forgotten. It was decay and it was dust and it was rotting but death isn't pretty. You can dress it up all you want, but it's never any nicer. Friends of ours, people Reigen knew, people who were half-human and half-animal and people who had clearly died painfully and were tossed aside without care.
But the shopkeeper was there. Strung to the wall by one hand, but...there. [ ... ] I knew it wasn't real. I knew I should have left her alone, because I'd finally been able to let her go, but I guess even now I'll take whatever time I can get with her. Maybe if I hadn't, things wouldn't have gone wrong there though.
[ he still hasn't clarified who she is, but he'll get there, probably. ]
she doesn't have a lot of experience with this - she's never really had anybody to lose. and maybe she's not exactly sure who he's talking about, but... she can maybe make a guess. or at the very least, she can get that this hurts to talk about. that it's opening old wounds.
she shifts a little closer, pressing catlike up into his hands. comforting.]
[ her catlike motions do enough to jar him out of his own head a tiny bit, helping him focus on petting over her fur and scritching lightly. ]
Yeah. I've...a lot of things like this are things I've only seen in my nightmares. But some of them are things I've seen in reality, too. [ ...he doesn't want to admit this, because it's nimona and they have such an easy and understanding friendship and to be honest he's always been afraid of when he might try to say too much and it scares her, too. it doesn't matter that they relate so deeply to one another. it's always the tiniest fear that people will leave.
you wish for him to return. you resent that he left you. you are worried that this one will leave you, too.
it was bianca, it was jason, it's will, it's nimona, it's ace, it's reigen, it's new friends he's made that know bits and pieces of who he is. how much will be too much, someday?
...when he does speak again, it's a little quieter. ]
...it got really bad a little while ago. Sometimes I couldn't tell which was which. Sometimes I would hear voices nobody else could. Sometimes I knew I was dreaming but I was awake and I felt like I wasn't even in my own body. Sometimes I...remembered things that I didn't want to, or things I thought I had forgotten that were things I'd buried or lost years ago. It finally got bad enough I couldn't keep ignoring it, so I had to go and fix things to try and make sense of everything again. Maybe this felt like that all over again.
[there's a pause, as she kind of tries to... gather this up. she has been so lonely for so long, so away from people for so long that she isn't quite sure how to respond to this. but here's the thing, she wants to. she wants to help. somehow.
how much will be too much, someday? how little will too little be? the tiniest fear that no matter what you bring to the table, people will leave.
she understands that, at least. so. carefully, she shifts so she can bonk her head against his jaw, settled, purring gently. she doesn't mind being petted, especially if it makes it easier for him to stay grounded.]
Yeah. [she starts, and then:] ... You're not in there anymore. But it sounds like whatever it was really wanted to hurt you.
[she shifts a paw to kind of half-hug him. she hesitates, and then tries a bit more.]
... I can tell you something like a word or, you know, tap a pattern or something that'll make you remember it's not a nightmare?
[ it's really funny because he hasn't even had this conversation with will. it's one of the things he thinks he should talk about, how this adventure reopened a lot of wounds and traumas he'd been working through back home, but will himself was hurting so badly he decided not to.
ace? no, ace didn't deserve that. reigen? no, reigen already had to deal with too much.
so...he tries with nimona and he can feel the way he tenses up just slightly thinking she might abort entirely. it's too raw and it's too emotional for how they usually talk to each other. (most of their hardest conversations are without words, anyway.)
but she's bonking her head into his face and purring and he blinks slowly while petting on instinct. it's really funny because one of his actual nightmares does include having his mouth sewn shut/not having a mouth at all so that was fun. but she's trying. he can acknowledge that. ]
...a pattern might work. [ uneasily said, because he recognizes it's still ridiculous when it was very much not real and that this had told him a painful story that belonged to someone else. but maybe it was so painful in a lot of ways because he understood in ways he doesn't think either of them should know. ] Sorry, I know it's...totally dumb when it's obvious this is the real world. Like I know most of the people we saw aren't really dead, I know that Bianca is, I know Apollo would never actually hurt Will. I know all of that. But I keep thinking about how we got there to begin with. The story we were following.
[this is one of those things that really would not be possible if nico had not opened the floor for her so many times. if it were anybody else, she'd skitter away from the emotions, just kind of awkwardly go that sucks and offer to blow something up, but... not with this.
when he says a pattern might work, she taps him three times with her paw, and then once long, and then another three paps. it's not ridiculous to her.]
Doesn't really matter if it was real or not, man. [she says, reinforcing her point, ears flicking. and then, a little more hesitant, but not unwilling:] ... You don't have to think about it too hard.
It was just some story they were telling you. [a long, long time ago, there was a kingdom that lived in peace...]
[ pap pap...he's still tense in a lot of ways, but the tapping seems to help him remember to breathe again, re-centering him for a second.]
You should know by now that I think too hard about everything. [ it's murmured like a joke, even though it's the least funny thing. he's back to petting her fur in slow, grateful movements. ] It may have been a story they were telling us, but...it was an important one. We wanted to make sure the people involved would have a happy ending. All of them, but especially the one who deserved a lot more than they were getting from a whole village. Just because a story usually goes a certain way doesn't mean the ending had to stay the same. I think we all knew that, and it's why we went to help.
Of course I do. [ his entire life has been one unhappy ending after another. but... ] But I think I always want to try when it matters. Especially when it seems like the people who need them to most won't be able to get them themselves, you know? It's what we did after we left the clothing shop. We went to Ballister's and we got weapons to go fight the director lady.
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you know the thing from httyd where hiccup just kind of bonks his head into toothless's and stays there? that's what's happening. ]
...it means I wish you had the chance to tell us things yourself instead of this place doing it. I wish you hadn't lived that kind of life. I wish you had been treated kinder for things that weren't your fault.
[ he could stand to explain literally anything but that cycle of thought has been looping his head for a while today. ]
I wish it were easier to believe things could be better without second-guessing all the time, I guess.
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you changed the way you see me, right? and then he pulls a sword on her, and she is still so very raw from the last person who said he understood, and that he wished the world wasn't so cruel. nico bonks her head with his own, and she's so stiff it actually kind of hurts.]
I don't know what you're talking about.
[she does, though.]
My life is fine.
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I know. [ he says, but in the tone of "I know this is a defense mechanism, I know it hurts to think about, I know you don't want to admit to otherwise." ] Sorry. What did I miss today...?
[ easy as always. giving her an out if she wants. ]
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he gives her an out. and she should take it, but - there's a part of her, that despite everything, doesn't want to let it go. because whatever he experienced, it probably hurt. and she cares a little bit too much about him to just leave him floundering.
she kneads at his clothes, trying to steel herself. just - act normal. just be normal. even though you hate it.]
Nothing. [she says, and then, tersely:] Can you just tell me what happened? Because whatever I don't hear I'm going to - make something up. And it'll be worse. Whatever it is that happened to you because of me.
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...Nimona, I don't even know if it was because of you. I don't think it's something you caused. [ there's a difference. ] But I think...even early, I think I knew it had something to do with things that happened to you. I didn't understand how, and I didn't want it to be. I was hoping that the house we woke up in was just a safe place for you instead of somewhere to hide.
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I haven't lived in a house ever, so it probably wasn't mine. [blatantly lies]
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[ but he frowns. ]
...but I think something happened to her. Someone...didn't want to try to understand her. They just wanted to use her. So we left her house to try and understand what happened. [ ... ] Reigen went to check on the town's post office. And we went to find Chiemi's house.
The raccoon at the door gave us a list of tasks, but I think we ignored him.
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she curls up in a ball. she doesn't want to hear about a magical world where everybody liked her and she had a nice home with a nice bed. especially if it went south.
she also doesn't want to think about raccoons, so:] Did you find anything at Chiemi's house?
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...but people protested. Either they didn't have the money, they couldn't meet the deadline or they just didn't want to. Anyone who went against the director was dealt with the same way. Mouth sewn shut, and instructed to be a good neighbor. Keep your head down. Smile and wave. Don't cause a scene.
[ he sounds pretty venomous about that, actually. ]
There was a note about Norma's death. How the gun was found in Chiemi's house, and how the villagers drove her away. She left behind another note apologizing she couldn't finish what was started.
...if there was anything else, I don't know, because the house suddenly blew up because Rita bombed us. [ he does not mention her (probably) blood sample. ]
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... Okay, but that kinda sounds like her. [don't be mean]
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Did you catch her?
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[ ...he lets her pick what she wants to hear. ]
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she's quiet for a minute, and then:] Where'd you go? [she doesn't like the sound of the attire place, but. they're kind of both batting back and forth in terms of i'll let you talk about what you want to - even if this is making her jittery.]
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but you know... ]
Where do you think? It had my name on it, and I'd fooled myself into thinking it'd be fine if I pretended it was mine. [ ... ] Norma's ghost went that way, too. So we wanted to follow her. She disappeared once we were inside though. Reigen...I think saw everything, first. For what it was. I didn't at first, and Will saw it all last. But before...it was a cute shop.
[ vaguely nostalgic. ]
Clothing store, you know? Skull wallpaper, chainmail, all the classics. The owner did a good job decorating. It suited her.
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ugh, she doesn't like where this is leading, either, but. her tail flicks back and forth.]
The owner was someone you know, I'm assuming. [i can't remember if he has ever mentioned his sister but i feel like he hasn't]
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Yeah. I didn't see her at first until my vision cleared. The...true nature of that shop was kind of awful? But also sort of familiar. There were...corpses. People who were thrown there and forgotten. It was decay and it was dust and it was rotting but death isn't pretty. You can dress it up all you want, but it's never any nicer. Friends of ours, people Reigen knew, people who were half-human and half-animal and people who had clearly died painfully and were tossed aside without care.
But the shopkeeper was there. Strung to the wall by one hand, but...there. [ ... ] I knew it wasn't real. I knew I should have left her alone, because I'd finally been able to let her go, but I guess even now I'll take whatever time I can get with her. Maybe if I hadn't, things wouldn't have gone wrong there though.
[ he still hasn't clarified who she is, but he'll get there, probably. ]
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she doesn't have a lot of experience with this - she's never really had anybody to lose. and maybe she's not exactly sure who he's talking about, but... she can maybe make a guess. or at the very least, she can get that this hurts to talk about. that it's opening old wounds.
she shifts a little closer, pressing catlike up into his hands. comforting.]
Sometimes the fake stuff gets you bad, too.
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Yeah. I've...a lot of things like this are things I've only seen in my nightmares. But some of them are things I've seen in reality, too. [ ...he doesn't want to admit this, because it's nimona and they have such an easy and understanding friendship and to be honest he's always been afraid of when he might try to say too much and it scares her, too. it doesn't matter that they relate so deeply to one another. it's always the tiniest fear that people will leave.
you wish for him to return.
you resent that he left you.
you are worried that this one will leave you, too.
it was bianca, it was jason, it's will, it's nimona, it's ace, it's reigen, it's new friends he's made that know bits and pieces of who he is. how much will be too much, someday?
...when he does speak again, it's a little quieter. ]
...it got really bad a little while ago. Sometimes I couldn't tell which was which. Sometimes I would hear voices nobody else could. Sometimes I knew I was dreaming but I was awake and I felt like I wasn't even in my own body. Sometimes I...remembered things that I didn't want to, or things I thought I had forgotten that were things I'd buried or lost years ago. It finally got bad enough I couldn't keep ignoring it, so I had to go and fix things to try and make sense of everything again. Maybe this felt like that all over again.
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how much will be too much, someday? how little will too little be? the tiniest fear that no matter what you bring to the table, people will leave.
she understands that, at least. so. carefully, she shifts so she can bonk her head against his jaw, settled, purring gently. she doesn't mind being petted, especially if it makes it easier for him to stay grounded.]
Yeah. [she starts, and then:] ... You're not in there anymore. But it sounds like whatever it was really wanted to hurt you.
[she shifts a paw to kind of half-hug him. she hesitates, and then tries a bit more.]
... I can tell you something like a word or, you know, tap a pattern or something that'll make you remember it's not a nightmare?
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ace? no, ace didn't deserve that.
reigen? no, reigen already had to deal with too much.
so...he tries with nimona and he can feel the way he tenses up just slightly thinking she might abort entirely. it's too raw and it's too emotional for how they usually talk to each other. (most of their hardest conversations are without words, anyway.)
but she's bonking her head into his face and purring and he blinks slowly while petting on instinct. it's really funny because one of his actual nightmares does include having his mouth sewn shut/not having a mouth at all so that was fun. but she's trying. he can acknowledge that. ]
...a pattern might work. [ uneasily said, because he recognizes it's still ridiculous when it was very much not real and that this had told him a painful story that belonged to someone else. but maybe it was so painful in a lot of ways because he understood in ways he doesn't think either of them should know. ] Sorry, I know it's...totally dumb when it's obvious this is the real world. Like I know most of the people we saw aren't really dead, I know that Bianca is, I know Apollo would never actually hurt Will. I know all of that. But I keep thinking about how we got there to begin with. The story we were following.
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when he says a pattern might work, she taps him three times with her paw, and then once long, and then another three paps. it's not ridiculous to her.]
Doesn't really matter if it was real or not, man. [she says, reinforcing her point, ears flicking. and then, a little more hesitant, but not unwilling:] ... You don't have to think about it too hard.
It was just some story they were telling you. [a long, long time ago, there was a kingdom that lived in peace...]
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You should know by now that I think too hard about everything. [ it's murmured like a joke, even though it's the least funny thing. he's back to petting her fur in slow, grateful movements. ] It may have been a story they were telling us, but...it was an important one. We wanted to make sure the people involved would have a happy ending. All of them, but especially the one who deserved a lot more than they were getting from a whole village. Just because a story usually goes a certain way doesn't mean the ending had to stay the same. I think we all knew that, and it's why we went to help.
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she settles into his petting.]
Happy endings don't really happen a lot in reality. But I know you know that.
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