MoM IC Contact: TAKE TWO

[khajidont]

Jaime's cell phone is more or less plugged riiiight into his brain, so he tends to pick up like 99% of the time! If not, however...

"Hey, Jaime here! Leave a message, and I'll get back to you ASAP."

[If you want to find his previous inbox - it hit captcha! - please go HERE.]

Comments

[khajidont]

You shouldn't have had to. Say anything, I mean. To feel like your feelings mattered.

[ If it had been him and Minato, and them entering a relationship - as odd as that feels to even think about - had any chance of hurting Ken, they wouldn't have done it. Simple as that. They wouldn't have been miserable about it either. They knew what was more important. Looking at Ruka now, even just imagining her, young and hurt and vulnerable, makes him wonder how anyone could possibly look at her and not feel the same. ]

They matter. [ They mattered then, too, even if nobody seemed to think that way, even if Ruka herself doesn't seem to think that way. ]

You were all in a crappy position, [ he does admit, though, relenting. ] This place has those in spades. Especially when all anyone ever seems to want is to have someone else.

[ He frowns down at the paper, all of those scribbled out faces, that single image of Ruka left behind. He takes the sketchbook, grabs a pen and doodles a face beside her, a crude little grin on the head's face, floppy hair, and beetle horns sticking out behind him.

At least Ruka's got someone now. ]

[dragony]

[ It is not a strange thing for Jaime to say. Your feelings mattered. They matter. It's not a strange thing for anyone to say, even about Ruka, but it's still strange to hear. It is uncomfortable to hear. It shouldn't be, and she knows it shouldn't be, but... her heart is strange, and weak, and it hurts sometimes just to have it at all.

She doesn't squirm out of his arms, or make any strange expressions for it, but it does leave her silent for a moment too long, distracted until she feels his hand moving over hers, taking her pen— ]

Hey, what—

[ —and drawing something new on the paper. Though it's tempting to fight him for control of the pen, she's held back by her curiosity, her brow furrowed as she looks back up at his face. What's he playing at? It's a quick drawing, so she doesn't have to wait long, but when she sees the paper... ]

... You?

[ It's a rough drawing, but there's no room for mistaking it. Who else would Jaime put there? And there's a dozen cruel little rejections that bubble at the edge of her thoughts — that he wasn't there for that, that he couldn't be (after all, that world had its own Jaime Reyes, someone dear to her for very different reasons, and if this one had been there instead, it wouldn't have been this, not then), that all the caring and the wishing now doesn't change how it went. But... those aren't the things she wants to say. They're not even things she wants to feel. They're all just residual poisons, little habitual sabotages all stirred up rather than let her be made vulnerable by sweet affection.

Besides. He's not trying to change the things that were, anyway. When Ruka looks up from the face on the paper to the one he's wearing, she sees the real message there. He's here now. Things like that won't happen here, because... it's hard to say she matters, but she matters to Jaime, who's leagues better at the whole emotional intelligence thing than most people. Or, she thinks, he just... sees how fragile she is, and knows how to be gentle enough with her.

God. Wasn't she trying to support him this time?

Without a word she leans over, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth — a lingering, sentimental thing. ]

How'd you get to be so sweet, huh?

[khajidont]

[ Jaime laughs, pleased - he's always easily pleased - as he lets her look at the crude little drawing he'd made. His nose wrinkles when he smiles. It didn't always do that. It seems like that's something he's picked up from her, too happy to see her smile to keep from mimicking the gesture unknowingly, and now he does it all on his own. His hand grasps at her wrist lightly, thumb on her pressure point. ]

What can I say? [ He says, an easy, natural thing. ] I've got a gift.

[ His eyes flick down to the page. ]

I couldn't have been there for all that. Not... me, anyway. But I'm here now.

[ He's not planning on going anywhere. He probably won't, at the end of the day. ]

That stuff's always gonna matter to me. So that's one.

[ One person to care, even when Ruka herself doesn't.

It's a start. It's better than none, anyway. ]

[dragony]

[ There's comfort and warmth in that gentle little touch, his hand at her wrist; he'll feel the little jump when her heart skips a beat, as ever too sensitive even to these little points of intimacy. It's distracting, and sweet, and as always makes it a little bit harder for her thoughts to focus on running counter to what he's saying. Someone else with that much power over her heart would be dangerous, and in a way he still is, but it's always these soft affirmations that he tries the hardest to make take root.

He's here now. She matters to him now. That's what's important, isn't it? They can't change how things went, and there's nothing from back then that she would want to give up. Not even the ones that hurt still. ]

Your feelings matter to me, too. And... not because I can feel them. You know that, right? The things that happen to you, that are important to you... they matter to me. I...

[ ... She shouldn't. Not yet. There's... still too many ways he could doubt, and she's not ready to face them. She doesn't have enough strength to lay them all to rest.

She lets her hand twist, her fingers wrapping around his wrist like a bracelet cuff. Her exhale is slow; she didn't realize she was holding it. ] ... ... I'm here, too.

[khajidont]

[ He smiles at her. Today's been... challenging. He knows the future will be even more challenging, when the things that have been given to him are taken away again. They always are. But for now, she's here, and so is he. And they'll be together for the forseeable future. The Porter likes them, after all. In a way, this helped more than anything else, listening to her talk about her past, slow and steady, having her trust him with that, learning about some of her past hurts as he cradles his own.

He always wants to know more about her. More about who she was, what she's been through. Maybe it's so that he knows what he has to be now. ]

I know, [ he says, voice low, fond. And he does. Even when he has his doubts about some of the strength of his feelings, just how swept up he finds himself, Ruka cares. She did even before they started dating. It's part of what drew him to her in the first place. The book she had given him, new years, calling him, watching others without them knowing just how much she was trying to help them, save them from themselves... ]

...you've showed me.