Mmm, yeah. If we're really in a pinch, I can always pick something up later. Let Khaji drive.
[ Khaji will enjoy that. Jaime likes flying so much that he usually keeps it as a group effort, but sometimes it's easier to just turn off and let Khaji handle everything up until the point it's time to land and actually pick the dang thing up. Khaji's a big fan of frippery up until that point - there is no use in going as quickly or showboating as much as Khaji prefers aside from the sheer joy of it - but Jaime will never deny him that.
He only extracts one arm from her to fish around in his pocket to take out his phone before draping back over her, holding his phone in front of them with a handy dandy delivery app open. ]
What d'you want?
[ Apparently it's too much to ask for him to not drape himself on her even when choosing what to eat. But as long as Ruka never pushes him away from those empty places, he'll continue insinuating himself into her space. ]
[ It's not a thing she's used to, this kind of casually affectionate contact. Her powers have mostly forbidden it — between the danger of touch when that was the sole way her empathy worked in the years before now, and an earlier childhood where her only friends were invisible, intangible beings, when could she have ever acclimated to it? Even now, while it's something she can anticipate from Jaime, in theory, the reality of it still takes her by surprise. Unexpected, but comforting, all the same.
And if he's the one instigating, and able to find something soothing about it when he's been run so rough by everything else... it hardly counts as her being selfish, does it?
Oh, right. Dinner. She doesn't take the phone, but she does start scrolling through the options, finally settling on a nearby Indian place, and loading up a few different plates. It's hard to tell how much of an appetite Jaime's going to have, but the excess will keep, and better to get more than less. It's a quiet few minutes as she goes through — in good circumstances, she'd make verbal confirmations as she'd go, but Ruka has the bad habit of simply deciding when things are a little more serious. (Well, Jaime could always pull the phone away from her if he hates it, so it's not like she's totally inconsiderate. It's fine.) ]
Yeah, we'll figure it out later, I'm sure. [ She'll make something up, if she has to, it's fine. In the meantime, though, she nudges the phone back his way. ] That work?
[ There's something even cozier about her scrolling through he options while he holds it, a quiet, casual connection like they belong here together - slot here together like that's what they were always meant to do. That's something he always relishes, the romantic that he is, but there's something more impactful about it at times like this one. They could be torn apart at any minute. Any second. He knows this. There's no narrative this place follows, no grand story that prevents it from happening. But in moments like this... it feels a little like that anyway. It's okay, isn't it? To feel that way for just a couple of minutes? He doesn't have to be bitterly realistic all the time, surely. You can't live in the present always looking towards a distant, terrifying future. Sometimes, you just have to ground yourself. ]
That looks good. Thanks. [ He taps the order button, more than happy to have someone making the decisions for him. He pushes his forehead against the side of her neck for a second, comfortable. ]
It's the kind of thing that, Ruka thinks, other people might not get. The ones who've only been here a short time, or have gone only through losses, the regular grievings. After all — having someone you love come back into your life should be a straight-forward, happy occasion. But it isn't so simple as that.
She can feel it, in the warmth of his arm pressed against her ribs, in the weight of his chest and the drum of his heart pressed against her back, the way he swells and collapses for steady breath. This kind of gratitude, this quiet cherishing of nothing extraordinary — it's the kind of thing someone might expect after a loss, or in the recovering stages of grief.
But this is what many of them don't understand: that's what this is. Reuniting with someone you've lost for so long, seeing again the face of someone you love, who is the same as you remember, who remembers you, who still cares for you, there is a strange, nameless sister of grief that comes in tow. It resurrects the pain of the loss from that time, in a way, and it reminds of all the hurt and the grieving that followed; it doesn't quite make the pain seem pointless, or stupid, or overdramatic, but it casts those old feelings in a different light. Do you remember how broken up you were? Do you remember your regrets? Do you remember the promises you made, the things you swore to do, to say? Will you do right, this time? It brings regret for the time they were gone, for the things that they missed — grief for the life lived in their absence.
It's a feeling Ruka is well familiar with, now. She wonders a little, as she scrubs her free hand through his unruly mess of hair, how well-acquainted he is with this; she wonders if he remembers anything she tried to tell him, back when the loss was fresh.
Probably not, but maybe it doesn't matter. They weren't the same people they are now. ]
Alright, [ a murmur of response, fingers coiling around locks of hair, and then combing once more loose. ] Think you'll be able to get up again, when it gets here? Or are you just gonna fall asleep, and make me do it?
[ The thing is, is that Jaime's not entirely sure what it is that he's feeling. He knows it's not bad. He doesn't think it's bad, anyway. It's just another version of what he's felt for some time now, as people keep on rolling back into his life, only to fade away once more, jubilance mixed with trepidation. It's a good thing that's happened to him. He's just tired. That's all. ]
I'm only gonna fall asleep if you keep doing that, [ Jaime mumbles into her neck, closing his eyes against her. He's always been a tactile sort, but that goes both ways; there's little more soothing in the small hours of the morning than having her beside him, idly playing with his hair. He doesn't even care if it musses it up. His hair's always a mess anyway. His voice, breathy and tired though it is, is warm, a little teasing, admissions of vulnerability coming easy when it's with her.
They can't stay like this forever, tempting though it may be, so he links his fingers with hers and tugs her over to the couch where he collapses with all the ease of someone who's been flopping down on this couch with all his weight for many years. ]
...I'm okay, really, [ he says, giving her a little squeeze. ] I'm just tired.
[ Crying always makes him tired. One of the drawbacks of being such a crybaby, huh? ]
[ His rumbling complaint isn't much of a deterrent, but it takes effort not to try squirming out of his grip when it tickles so much to feel the words as heat against her neck. (It also takes effort not to sink further into the embrace, because — well, this isn't the time or the place for that kind of thing! No matter how tempting it is! Or how cute he's being!)
And so Ruka lets him drag her into the living room, and waits for him to finish his exuberant collapse before she sits down after, a much more controlled descent to the stretch of cushion he hasn't commandeered. She doesn't quite lean back into the couch — she has a much harder time relaxing into furniture than most — but she anchors her presence by stealing one of his hands, folding it between her palms. ]
Alright. But if you're not-okay later, that's alright, too. I'll be here.
[ Promises, promises. They both know there's no promise that can't be broken, but intention matters, too. And, who knows? There's always the trend of people drifting away in chains; maybe it's true in reverse, too, and these constant little assurances help keep them anchored to this world. It can't be true all the time, but it's a nice thought.
Her thumb runs over the line of his wrist. ]
You'll have to forgive me, though. I don't think your friend has the best impression of me.
Okay. But - I think I will be. Like I said, it's a good thing, right?
[ Once Ruka finds herself settled on the couch - she always waits for him, probably because she doesn't feel like getting bounced around by the mini-earthquake from someone who really doesn't weigh all that much in the first place - he slumps amicably towards her, shoulders bumping as she folds his hand in hers. ]
...what do you mean he doesn't have a good impression of you? I didn't even know you guys had a chance to talk.
[ Right? Well, maybe not, but maybe so. For Jaime, who doesn't run into the same cyclical destructive thoughts that Ruka does, it really might settle as quietly as this. Just because weeds like that grow in her heart is no reason for her to plant those seeds in his.
She leans against his shoulder, settling in. ]
He was on the Network, asking about you. Among other things. I answered the other things first.
[ Meaning: went through a good portion of a conversation before confirming that Jaime was still around, and, of course, snarked when he complained about it. Usual Ruka Behaviors. ]
[ Of course he was. Jaime's pleased that he did, but it makes sense, doesn't it? He and Jaime had been close. And now that the others have been ported out, Jaime may be the only person not from his world that Yusuke still knows. That's an uncomfortable thought, though not an unfamiliar one; he's known plenty who've been in the same boat, his girlfriend included. ]
Why'd you avoid telling him for a while? Did you know who he was, or...?
[ Not always out, not always in sight, but Jaime is a hoarder of sentiment. Unlike Ruka, who tries to bury her pains and her losses in dark places where no one can trespass, Jaime almost keeps vigils for it. Mementos on a desk; paintings in the hallway; photographs tucked into frames, into books, onto the bare spaces of the walls.
Her thumb runs along the back of his for idle comfort, wondering how to explain it. ]
I suppose... I wanted a closer look, at the kind of person he was, first. Make sure the face he wore actually belonged to him.
[ Jaime peers at her, curious. That's never something that occurs to him. But he's less suspicious by nature - has had fewer bad things happen to him too - and he's got the boon of Khaji, who would be able to tell him immediately whether or not his DNA was the same. ]
Yeah? You thought he was, like... a shapeshifter, or something? Or could be?
[ It's not an outlandish suspicion. Not with the lives that they lead. ]
[ Nobody's done that to him before. Because it's a crazy thing to do, right? Short-sighted and cruel in all of the wrong ways. It would take a real piece of work to do that. ]
Mmm. Well, there was when a bunch of people got abducted, and replaced with shapeshifter lookalikes. They could copy memories and spoof their DNA, so they were really difficult to flush out. Eridan got switched, but that was before we started dating. The other Jaime did, too. I don't remember who else.
Aside from that... [ It's not flippancy, the way she tells these stories, but there's a near casualness to it that betrays the distance of time. Things that hurt a great deal when they happened, of course, but... ] ... there was a guy from my world. He was someone I would have met, later, but I didn't know him then. Told me that the time he was from, we'd known each other a few months, that we were dating. You know, like, grade-school dating. Turns out he was actually trying to kill me, back in NDC, thought it might stick in the City.
[ That really was a long time ago, wasn't it? She can't remember the last time she even thought about Luciano. There's other stories she could tell, too, but even as she tells these ones, there's one person that comes to the forefront of her memory — one case worse than anything else.
Her hand shifts in his, changing grip. Fidgeting. She speaks a little quieter. ]
... You, um. Probably don't wanna hear about the other one. It has a really bad ending.
[ Shapeshifter lookalikes. Those aren't so surprising. That's Jaime's bread and butter, after all, these things that just seem to happen sometimes - nobody's fault but the shapeshifters'. And then you move on, because what else can you do? The other part is different - and met with a mild spike of alarm; he's not worried about it now, of course, but some asshole was trying to kill her when she was twelve? - and a little less in his wheelhouse.
And then... well. He doesn't move, his hand in hers, firm enough so that he's still there, loose enough to let her fidget or pull away if she has to. He frowns at her. Does she still think, after all this time, there's anything that he'd want her to keep from him because he doesn't want to hear it? He knows she has her secrets. Things she won't talk about, that haunt her in the night, just like Jaime. If she doesn't want to voice the things that happened in those long years, he understands. If they were to lay all of their experiences out on the table, they'd be there for days, weeks, months.
But not for his sake. ]
I wanna hear about anything you wanna tell me. Even if it didn't end well.
[ It's a story she's only had to tell a couple times. Had to, the details wrenched from her like pulling teeth, a protracted misery offered in recompense for a wrong she'd done, a mistake she'd made. It's not the kind of thing she offers, nothing she tells strangers, friends. What good can pity do her now?
... But... Jaime keeps parts of himself closed off, too. There are hurts of his she doesn't know — some she sees in flickers behind his eyes at unusual moments, reacting to unseen blows, and she's never known how to ask about those kinds of things. She wants to know him.
Maybe he wants to know her, too. ]
... He didn't do it out of malice. I think... he thought he was clever enough, he'd be able to pull it off. [ She's nearly the age he was, now; those years seemed so much wider, so much more impressive, when she was still a child. ] But, um... this guy, he ported in only a day or two after a different him ported out. We didn't have the auto-refresh on the Network, or anything like that, so... when he left, nobody realized it. The second guy, he arrived in a strange place, and found he already had a life in progress. He had a job. A house. A— ... Uh, commitments.
So he. Um. Picked it up, as if it'd been him the whole time. That kind of thing, the switching histories, it wasn't common at all back then yet. It's not like we knew how to look for it. Just, he seemed off. We chalked it up to stress, at first, but... just because you know somebody is supposed to be your friend, it doesn't mean you know how to treat them. Even if you can see what's happened before, if you don't know what the feelings are supposed to be, it's not going to be genuine.
... Maybe he thought, if he faked it long enough, the feelings would come later. But we were just obligations to be minded. Contracts to fulfill. Nothing more.
[ That's a crazy thing to do. That's a crazy thing for anyone to do, and Jaime likes to think that he knows crazy - heck, he's done crazy. You do crazy things like go out against things you'll never win against, or try to forge a life in a place that will never be permanent, or delude yourself into thinking that you're fine when you just got a dump truck of trauma piled on your head, but this isn't any of those things. This is identity fraud. Only the identity who he stole was his own - but not his own.
For a moment, Jaime entertains the idea of a different version of him who swoops in, pretends like everything's the same, like he knows everyone and can maintain all of the same responsibilities. He feels very resentful towards that hypothetical version of him for a moment. It's more than crazy. It's stupid. It's crass. And... ]
That's cruel, [ Jaime says softly. ] Even if he didn't think that's what it was. That's cruel.
[ Not only to be forgotten, but to be picked up again as though she's a job at the grocery store, as though she's a thing, not a person, as though nothing that came before him had meant anything, had their own lives, their own feelings. ]
You deserved better. Everyone in his life did. You can't just...
[ He shakes his head. Squeezes her hand in his. It's awful, but it makes sense. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes, the more explains about her. ]
[ It's surreal. It's one of the awful things that happened to her, sure, but it's... there's a strangeness to feeling the way Jaime has that spike of anger, the resentment. The things that hurt her happened so long ago, and maybe she was never able to forgive those people, and maybe they'd never tried to make amends to her — and all the supports she'd been given were too transitory, too fragile. It had always wound up feeling, in the end, that there was no point to letting herself feel hurt; it wouldn't change anything. In the grand scheme of things, whatever happened to her wouldn't matter, because nobody would stick around long enough for anything like consequences.
You deserved better. Jaime's not the first person to have said it, but it remains a strange thing to hear. ]
... I mean, it was different. I couldn't tell what people were feeling just by being around them. I didn't have that sense, yet. It was just the touch-stuff. [ Like his recipe cards. Like the little carved rabbit he gave her. ] We were on a trip. In Egypt. It was a little, um, vacation we'd planned, a while before, for just the three of us. He'd been acting weird, of course, and wouldn't talk about it... it felt easier to corner him there. He was the kind of person that... wouldn't talk about things, even if you tried to bring it up, if he had any way to avoid it. So I had to... use my power, to prove it.
I made up some story about needing practice, and gave him some totems, and asked him about different things while he held them. Like, his sister, his job, his colleagues in the City. His spouse, his childhood friends. His son. ... His daughter.
[ ... ]
... He didn't realize what I was doing until it was done with. He knew about it, but he didn't really understand. He had all these details, but couldn't sort out which things were important, and which things weren't. We had a lot of arguments, after that, about things, but—[—leaning as they are together, he'll feel the way she tries to shrug her shoulder, as if to dismiss the subject—]—he ended up exPorting about a month later, anyway.
[ That sure sounds like Ruka, doesn't it? Even back then, even that young - she's bright, with or without her empathy. She's good at collecting data. At studying people, even if they don't know they're being studied, on getting the sum of them only to burst into their life having already known what they've been trying to keep secret. For Jaime, it had been terrifying, but it had also been a relief.
To be this man, covering up this terrible secret, wronging the people around him... there's no relief to be had there, is there? Just the knowledge that you messed up. You messed up so bad, and you made everyone else suffer because of it. Even a child. A child who was, by all accounts, far more clever than he was. If it wasn't so devastating, Jaime would be proud of her, in a way. She's brilliant. He's always admired that. But this isn't the direction her brilliance should have had to have been placed. On a family vacation. Something that should have been good, ruined again.
He never even had to answer for his mistakes. Not really. He just got to vanish. The coward's way out, even if he hadn't chosen it.
What an asshole. ]
What an asshole.
[ Oops. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. ]
Sorry. I know it was a complicated situation, I just -- it would have been painful enough, him coming back like that. To lead you on like that, it's just... [ He lets out a quiet exhale. ] And if he left that quickly, it's not like you could do anything else about it.
[ It would have been less cruel to have him just disappear, leaving her with at least happy memories. ]
Yeah. I mean, he tried, at least. But it was a mess; he was hurting, too, and he wasn't any good making decisions, when he felt like that. Sometimes it was like I was the only adult in the house.
[ It always seemed to feel that way, even as a child; she was only thirteen when Miles left for good. By the time she was fifteen, she was totally on her own. Always the youngest, but always the responsible one. ]
It felt like being stuck in someone else's soap opera. It was so stupid.
[ She says it more like gossip than the more personal pain of the rest — as stupid as it was, if it hurt her then, it's a wound that scabbed over well enough. ]
Do you wanna hear about it? It's not really much to do with the rest, but—
[ —but how often does she volunteer these kinds of things? ]
[ That's not the way it should be. Heck, he and Minato had been teenagers when they'd been taking care of Ken, and they'd tried so, so hard to make sure that he didn't feel burdened by their own disasters. He thinks that they did a pretty good job of it. So if they could pull it off, what's with these guys? Why take a kid in when you can't even do a half-decent job? Nobody deserves to have to take care of the people who were acting as their parents at that young an age. ]
Yeah. Yeah, of course I want to hear it, [ Jaime says, shifting towards her a little. ] I wanna hear about anything you wanna tell me.
[ That's a blanket statement more than anything else, but it's a true one. It's easy enough to tell that he's telling the truth, with the full force of his attention on her, wanting to learn more about all of those years that had been taken away from her along with that entire world. There are no physical keepsakes he can go through like Ruka can go through his pictures, no remnants of the people that were. Just her and her memories.
[ It's nowhere near the first time he's said something like that, and so while it's not surprising to be told, it is... a comfort, and one she's not sure she'll ever get used to. At the very least, it'll never lose value. It's been a long, long time since there was anyone she could confide in like this, and longer still since it was someone who could listen, and hear what she was trying to say, instead of seeing only the things she'd done wrong, or the ways she should have reacted, or how she should have felt.
It seems like it should be such an easy thing to find — but it's rare for anything to come to her easily.
She answers first with a gentle squeeze of his hand, grateful. ]
I know... still, I want to make sure. I don't want to take you for granted. [ He deserves better than that. ] It's the same for you, too, you know. I want to know you, too.
[ She falls quiet then, trying to figure out where to start — but after a moment she frowns, realization setting in. ]
I'm gonna have to make a diagram. [ It's too complicated to follow otherwise. God. This is so stupid. She looks back to Jaime, apologetic. ] That's how dumb this gets. Hang on.
[ With that, she makes quick and careful work of disentangling from where they're seated on the couch — and hey, there's a knock at the door. Delivery time!!!!! Time for Ruka to scurry upstairs for some paper and to leave all the "try to get the delivery guy to leave before he realizes he's in an imPort neighborhood and starts asking for autographs and favors" work to Jaime. ]
I know. And you've never taken me for granted. This is just -- this is the way things should be, [ Jaime says warmly, giving her a kiss on the cheek, his facial hair scratching against her. It's true. All of it. It is the way it should be. It should be taken for granted in a way, because it should be expected. But she's also someone who's never made him feel like he was being taken for granted, as though someone would accept what he'd do, what he'd say without trying to see who was underneath it all. He wants to be that for her too. ] And you can ask me anything whenever, you know. It's just that stuff doesn't always pop into my head.
[ Which is why she won't hear anything of his past, the big, momentous events, but over dinner, she may well hear that he dreamed that he was digging a giant hole in the desert, and hey Ruka, isn't that weird?
From upstairs, Ruka will hear a muffled: ] Hey, man, we just wanna eat. I'll double your tip if you just, like... go.
[ By the time she gets back down, Jaime's seated on the couch again, cutlery and plates out and a bevy of food laid neatly out on the coffee table.
Jaime's already got a mouthful of pakora. ] Mmf, [ he says artfully, waving at her. ]
[ She moves lightly down the stairs, footsteps almost silent as she pads her way to the couch. It's easy enough to get her spot back, setting book and pen on the arm rest beside her for the moment while she takes off her gloves, looking over their selection. Okay.... maybe she ordered them too much (she's not going to eat even a third of it, when it's all said and done), but the variety is nice, and whatever they don't finish tonight, Jaime'll get to later. And if he doesn't, it'll disappear some other way all the same.
The downside, of course, is there's not much that's neat enough for her to peck away at with one hand while she draws with the other — her coordination is good, but it's not that good. She debates a moment in silence, and with gloves put away, she retrieves the sketchbook, flipping to a blank page. ]
You're gonna wind up financing your own stalkers like that.
He didn't know what I was gonna tip him in the first place, so how would he know whether or not it was double?
[ Okay, it was probably double of a bad tip, but Jaime's not going to say that out loud. He's a good tipper! He's got the funds! So nobody really needs to know that he probably tipped him a little too much, considering the grief. Whatever, it's fine. ]
Besides, if he tries to stalk us, I'll sic Khaji on his ass. He'll terrorize all of his electronics. It'll be great. Right, Khaj?
[ Khaji agrees a little too emphatically. ]
...if he's an actual stalker, [ he scolds him, sitting down and starting to shove spoons in the take-out containers. ]
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-09-26 09:44 pm (UTC)[ Khaji will enjoy that. Jaime likes flying so much that he usually keeps it as a group effort, but sometimes it's easier to just turn off and let Khaji handle everything up until the point it's time to land and actually pick the dang thing up. Khaji's a big fan of frippery up until that point - there is no use in going as quickly or showboating as much as Khaji prefers aside from the sheer joy of it - but Jaime will never deny him that.
He only extracts one arm from her to fish around in his pocket to take out his phone before draping back over her, holding his phone in front of them with a handy dandy delivery app open. ]
What d'you want?
[ Apparently it's too much to ask for him to not drape himself on her even when choosing what to eat. But as long as Ruka never pushes him away from those empty places, he'll continue insinuating himself into her space. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-09-27 12:31 am (UTC)[ It's not a thing she's used to, this kind of casually affectionate contact. Her powers have mostly forbidden it — between the danger of touch when that was the sole way her empathy worked in the years before now, and an earlier childhood where her only friends were invisible, intangible beings, when could she have ever acclimated to it? Even now, while it's something she can anticipate from Jaime, in theory, the reality of it still takes her by surprise. Unexpected, but comforting, all the same.
And if he's the one instigating, and able to find something soothing about it when he's been run so rough by everything else... it hardly counts as her being selfish, does it?
Oh, right. Dinner. She doesn't take the phone, but she does start scrolling through the options, finally settling on a nearby Indian place, and loading up a few different plates. It's hard to tell how much of an appetite Jaime's going to have, but the excess will keep, and better to get more than less. It's a quiet few minutes as she goes through — in good circumstances, she'd make verbal confirmations as she'd go, but Ruka has the bad habit of simply deciding when things are a little more serious. (Well, Jaime could always pull the phone away from her if he hates it, so it's not like she's totally inconsiderate. It's fine.) ]
Yeah, we'll figure it out later, I'm sure. [ She'll make something up, if she has to, it's fine. In the meantime, though, she nudges the phone back his way. ] That work?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-21 04:13 am (UTC)[ There's something even cozier about her scrolling through he options while he holds it, a quiet, casual connection like they belong here together - slot here together like that's what they were always meant to do. That's something he always relishes, the romantic that he is, but there's something more impactful about it at times like this one. They could be torn apart at any minute. Any second. He knows this. There's no narrative this place follows, no grand story that prevents it from happening. But in moments like this... it feels a little like that anyway. It's okay, isn't it? To feel that way for just a couple of minutes? He doesn't have to be bitterly realistic all the time, surely. You can't live in the present always looking towards a distant, terrifying future. Sometimes, you just have to ground yourself. ]
That looks good. Thanks. [ He taps the order button, more than happy to have someone making the decisions for him. He pushes his forehead against the side of her neck for a second, comfortable. ]
Wanna go sit on the couch for a while?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-21 06:28 am (UTC)It's the kind of thing that, Ruka thinks, other people might not get. The ones who've only been here a short time, or have gone only through losses, the regular grievings. After all — having someone you love come back into your life should be a straight-forward, happy occasion. But it isn't so simple as that.
She can feel it, in the warmth of his arm pressed against her ribs, in the weight of his chest and the drum of his heart pressed against her back, the way he swells and collapses for steady breath. This kind of gratitude, this quiet cherishing of nothing extraordinary — it's the kind of thing someone might expect after a loss, or in the recovering stages of grief.
But this is what many of them don't understand: that's what this is. Reuniting with someone you've lost for so long, seeing again the face of someone you love, who is the same as you remember, who remembers you, who still cares for you, there is a strange, nameless sister of grief that comes in tow. It resurrects the pain of the loss from that time, in a way, and it reminds of all the hurt and the grieving that followed; it doesn't quite make the pain seem pointless, or stupid, or overdramatic, but it casts those old feelings in a different light. Do you remember how broken up you were? Do you remember your regrets? Do you remember the promises you made, the things you swore to do, to say? Will you do right, this time? It brings regret for the time they were gone, for the things that they missed — grief for the life lived in their absence.
It's a feeling Ruka is well familiar with, now. She wonders a little, as she scrubs her free hand through his unruly mess of hair, how well-acquainted he is with this; she wonders if he remembers anything she tried to tell him, back when the loss was fresh.
Probably not, but maybe it doesn't matter. They weren't the same people they are now. ]
Alright, [ a murmur of response, fingers coiling around locks of hair, and then combing once more loose. ] Think you'll be able to get up again, when it gets here? Or are you just gonna fall asleep, and make me do it?
[ Even the teasing is more gentle than usual. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-10-29 12:25 am (UTC)I'm only gonna fall asleep if you keep doing that, [ Jaime mumbles into her neck, closing his eyes against her. He's always been a tactile sort, but that goes both ways; there's little more soothing in the small hours of the morning than having her beside him, idly playing with his hair. He doesn't even care if it musses it up. His hair's always a mess anyway. His voice, breathy and tired though it is, is warm, a little teasing, admissions of vulnerability coming easy when it's with her.
They can't stay like this forever, tempting though it may be, so he links his fingers with hers and tugs her over to the couch where he collapses with all the ease of someone who's been flopping down on this couch with all his weight for many years. ]
...I'm okay, really, [ he says, giving her a little squeeze. ] I'm just tired.
[ Crying always makes him tired. One of the drawbacks of being such a crybaby, huh? ]
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Date: 2019-10-29 04:58 am (UTC)And so Ruka lets him drag her into the living room, and waits for him to finish his exuberant collapse before she sits down after, a much more controlled descent to the stretch of cushion he hasn't commandeered. She doesn't quite lean back into the couch — she has a much harder time relaxing into furniture than most — but she anchors her presence by stealing one of his hands, folding it between her palms. ]
Alright. But if you're not-okay later, that's alright, too. I'll be here.
[ Promises, promises. They both know there's no promise that can't be broken, but intention matters, too. And, who knows? There's always the trend of people drifting away in chains; maybe it's true in reverse, too, and these constant little assurances help keep them anchored to this world. It can't be true all the time, but it's a nice thought.
Her thumb runs over the line of his wrist. ]
You'll have to forgive me, though. I don't think your friend has the best impression of me.
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Date: 2019-11-02 01:18 am (UTC)[ Once Ruka finds herself settled on the couch - she always waits for him, probably because she doesn't feel like getting bounced around by the mini-earthquake from someone who really doesn't weigh all that much in the first place - he slumps amicably towards her, shoulders bumping as she folds his hand in hers. ]
...what do you mean he doesn't have a good impression of you? I didn't even know you guys had a chance to talk.
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Date: 2019-11-02 03:07 am (UTC)She leans against his shoulder, settling in. ]
He was on the Network, asking about you. Among other things. I answered the other things first.
[ Meaning: went through a good portion of a conversation before confirming that Jaime was still around, and, of course, snarked when he complained about it. Usual Ruka Behaviors. ]
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Date: 2019-11-06 02:23 am (UTC)[ Of course he was. Jaime's pleased that he did, but it makes sense, doesn't it? He and Jaime had been close. And now that the others have been ported out, Jaime may be the only person not from his world that Yusuke still knows. That's an uncomfortable thought, though not an unfamiliar one; he's known plenty who've been in the same boat, his girlfriend included. ]
Why'd you avoid telling him for a while? Did you know who he was, or...?
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Date: 2019-11-06 02:35 am (UTC)[ Not always out, not always in sight, but Jaime is a hoarder of sentiment. Unlike Ruka, who tries to bury her pains and her losses in dark places where no one can trespass, Jaime almost keeps vigils for it. Mementos on a desk; paintings in the hallway; photographs tucked into frames, into books, onto the bare spaces of the walls.
Her thumb runs along the back of his for idle comfort, wondering how to explain it. ]
I suppose... I wanted a closer look, at the kind of person he was, first. Make sure the face he wore actually belonged to him.
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Date: 2019-11-08 03:55 am (UTC)Yeah? You thought he was, like... a shapeshifter, or something? Or could be?
[ It's not an outlandish suspicion. Not with the lives that they lead. ]
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Date: 2019-11-09 05:18 am (UTC)[ One of her shoulders shrugs a little, but she doesn't make any motion to moving away from where they are. ]
It happens.
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Date: 2019-11-11 05:00 am (UTC)[ Nobody's done that to him before. Because it's a crazy thing to do, right? Short-sighted and cruel in all of the wrong ways. It would take a real piece of work to do that. ]
...who did that to you?
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Date: 2019-11-11 06:03 am (UTC)Aside from that... [ It's not flippancy, the way she tells these stories, but there's a near casualness to it that betrays the distance of time. Things that hurt a great deal when they happened, of course, but... ] ... there was a guy from my world. He was someone I would have met, later, but I didn't know him then. Told me that the time he was from, we'd known each other a few months, that we were dating. You know, like, grade-school dating. Turns out he was actually trying to kill me, back in NDC, thought it might stick in the City.
[ That really was a long time ago, wasn't it? She can't remember the last time she even thought about Luciano. There's other stories she could tell, too, but even as she tells these ones, there's one person that comes to the forefront of her memory — one case worse than anything else.
Her hand shifts in his, changing grip. Fidgeting. She speaks a little quieter. ]
... You, um. Probably don't wanna hear about the other one. It has a really bad ending.
[ Worse than attempted murder, apparently. ]
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Date: 2019-11-11 08:52 am (UTC)And then... well. He doesn't move, his hand in hers, firm enough so that he's still there, loose enough to let her fidget or pull away if she has to. He frowns at her. Does she still think, after all this time, there's anything that he'd want her to keep from him because he doesn't want to hear it? He knows she has her secrets. Things she won't talk about, that haunt her in the night, just like Jaime. If she doesn't want to voice the things that happened in those long years, he understands. If they were to lay all of their experiences out on the table, they'd be there for days, weeks, months.
But not for his sake. ]
I wanna hear about anything you wanna tell me. Even if it didn't end well.
[ Especially if. ]
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Date: 2019-11-11 10:00 am (UTC)... But... Jaime keeps parts of himself closed off, too. There are hurts of his she doesn't know — some she sees in flickers behind his eyes at unusual moments, reacting to unseen blows, and she's never known how to ask about those kinds of things. She wants to know him.
Maybe he wants to know her, too. ]
... He didn't do it out of malice. I think... he thought he was clever enough, he'd be able to pull it off. [ She's nearly the age he was, now; those years seemed so much wider, so much more impressive, when she was still a child. ] But, um... this guy, he ported in only a day or two after a different him ported out. We didn't have the auto-refresh on the Network, or anything like that, so... when he left, nobody realized it. The second guy, he arrived in a strange place, and found he already had a life in progress. He had a job. A house. A— ... Uh, commitments.
So he. Um. Picked it up, as if it'd been him the whole time. That kind of thing, the switching histories, it wasn't common at all back then yet. It's not like we knew how to look for it. Just, he seemed off. We chalked it up to stress, at first, but... just because you know somebody is supposed to be your friend, it doesn't mean you know how to treat them. Even if you can see what's happened before, if you don't know what the feelings are supposed to be, it's not going to be genuine.
... Maybe he thought, if he faked it long enough, the feelings would come later. But we were just obligations to be minded. Contracts to fulfill. Nothing more.
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Date: 2019-11-19 02:36 am (UTC)[ That's a crazy thing to do. That's a crazy thing for anyone to do, and Jaime likes to think that he knows crazy - heck, he's done crazy. You do crazy things like go out against things you'll never win against, or try to forge a life in a place that will never be permanent, or delude yourself into thinking that you're fine when you just got a dump truck of trauma piled on your head, but this isn't any of those things. This is identity fraud. Only the identity who he stole was his own - but not his own.
For a moment, Jaime entertains the idea of a different version of him who swoops in, pretends like everything's the same, like he knows everyone and can maintain all of the same responsibilities. He feels very resentful towards that hypothetical version of him for a moment. It's more than crazy. It's stupid. It's crass. And... ]
That's cruel, [ Jaime says softly. ] Even if he didn't think that's what it was. That's cruel.
[ Not only to be forgotten, but to be picked up again as though she's a job at the grocery store, as though she's a thing, not a person, as though nothing that came before him had meant anything, had their own lives, their own feelings. ]
You deserved better. Everyone in his life did. You can't just...
[ He shakes his head. Squeezes her hand in his. It's awful, but it makes sense. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes, the more explains about her. ]
But I guess he did. How did you find out?
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Date: 2019-11-19 03:17 am (UTC)[ It's surreal. It's one of the awful things that happened to her, sure, but it's... there's a strangeness to feeling the way Jaime has that spike of anger, the resentment. The things that hurt her happened so long ago, and maybe she was never able to forgive those people, and maybe they'd never tried to make amends to her — and all the supports she'd been given were too transitory, too fragile. It had always wound up feeling, in the end, that there was no point to letting herself feel hurt; it wouldn't change anything. In the grand scheme of things, whatever happened to her wouldn't matter, because nobody would stick around long enough for anything like consequences.
You deserved better. Jaime's not the first person to have said it, but it remains a strange thing to hear. ]
... I mean, it was different. I couldn't tell what people were feeling just by being around them. I didn't have that sense, yet. It was just the touch-stuff. [ Like his recipe cards. Like the little carved rabbit he gave her. ] We were on a trip. In Egypt. It was a little, um, vacation we'd planned, a while before, for just the three of us. He'd been acting weird, of course, and wouldn't talk about it... it felt easier to corner him there. He was the kind of person that... wouldn't talk about things, even if you tried to bring it up, if he had any way to avoid it. So I had to... use my power, to prove it.
I made up some story about needing practice, and gave him some totems, and asked him about different things while he held them. Like, his sister, his job, his colleagues in the City. His spouse, his childhood friends. His son. ... His daughter.
[ ... ]
... He didn't realize what I was doing until it was done with. He knew about it, but he didn't really understand. He had all these details, but couldn't sort out which things were important, and which things weren't. We had a lot of arguments, after that, about things, but—[—leaning as they are together, he'll feel the way she tries to shrug her shoulder, as if to dismiss the subject—]—he ended up exPorting about a month later, anyway.
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Date: 2019-11-24 10:23 pm (UTC)To be this man, covering up this terrible secret, wronging the people around him... there's no relief to be had there, is there? Just the knowledge that you messed up. You messed up so bad, and you made everyone else suffer because of it. Even a child. A child who was, by all accounts, far more clever than he was. If it wasn't so devastating, Jaime would be proud of her, in a way. She's brilliant. He's always admired that. But this isn't the direction her brilliance should have had to have been placed. On a family vacation. Something that should have been good, ruined again.
He never even had to answer for his mistakes. Not really. He just got to vanish. The coward's way out, even if he hadn't chosen it.
What an asshole. ]
What an asshole.
[ Oops. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. ]
Sorry. I know it was a complicated situation, I just -- it would have been painful enough, him coming back like that. To lead you on like that, it's just... [ He lets out a quiet exhale. ] And if he left that quickly, it's not like you could do anything else about it.
[ It would have been less cruel to have him just disappear, leaving her with at least happy memories. ]
His -- his spouse. Were they there for you?
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Date: 2019-11-25 12:05 am (UTC)[ It always seemed to feel that way, even as a child; she was only thirteen when Miles left for good. By the time she was fifteen, she was totally on her own. Always the youngest, but always the responsible one. ]
It felt like being stuck in someone else's soap opera. It was so stupid.
[ She says it more like gossip than the more personal pain of the rest — as stupid as it was, if it hurt her then, it's a wound that scabbed over well enough. ]
Do you wanna hear about it? It's not really much to do with the rest, but—
[ —but how often does she volunteer these kinds of things? ]
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Date: 2019-11-29 02:03 am (UTC)Yeah. Yeah, of course I want to hear it, [ Jaime says, shifting towards her a little. ] I wanna hear about anything you wanna tell me.
[ That's a blanket statement more than anything else, but it's a true one. It's easy enough to tell that he's telling the truth, with the full force of his attention on her, wanting to learn more about all of those years that had been taken away from her along with that entire world. There are no physical keepsakes he can go through like Ruka can go through his pictures, no remnants of the people that were. Just her and her memories.
And now Jaime and his own, in a way. ]
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Date: 2019-12-03 03:50 am (UTC)It seems like it should be such an easy thing to find — but it's rare for anything to come to her easily.
She answers first with a gentle squeeze of his hand, grateful. ]
I know... still, I want to make sure. I don't want to take you for granted. [ He deserves better than that. ] It's the same for you, too, you know. I want to know you, too.
[ She falls quiet then, trying to figure out where to start — but after a moment she frowns, realization setting in. ]
I'm gonna have to make a diagram. [ It's too complicated to follow otherwise. God. This is so stupid. She looks back to Jaime, apologetic. ] That's how dumb this gets. Hang on.
[ With that, she makes quick and careful work of disentangling from where they're seated on the couch — and hey, there's a knock at the door. Delivery time!!!!! Time for Ruka to scurry upstairs for some paper and to leave all the "try to get the delivery guy to leave before he realizes he's in an imPort neighborhood and starts asking for autographs and favors" work to Jaime. ]
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Date: 2019-12-07 02:32 am (UTC)[ Which is why she won't hear anything of his past, the big, momentous events, but over dinner, she may well hear that he dreamed that he was digging a giant hole in the desert, and hey Ruka, isn't that weird?
From upstairs, Ruka will hear a muffled: ] Hey, man, we just wanna eat. I'll double your tip if you just, like... go.
[ By the time she gets back down, Jaime's seated on the couch again, cutlery and plates out and a bevy of food laid neatly out on the coffee table.
Jaime's already got a mouthful of pakora. ] Mmf, [ he says artfully, waving at her. ]
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Date: 2019-12-10 06:09 am (UTC)[ She moves lightly down the stairs, footsteps almost silent as she pads her way to the couch. It's easy enough to get her spot back, setting book and pen on the arm rest beside her for the moment while she takes off her gloves, looking over their selection. Okay.... maybe she ordered them too much (she's not going to eat even a third of it, when it's all said and done), but the variety is nice, and whatever they don't finish tonight, Jaime'll get to later. And if he doesn't, it'll disappear some other way all the same.
The downside, of course, is there's not much that's neat enough for her to peck away at with one hand while she draws with the other — her coordination is good, but it's not that good. She debates a moment in silence, and with gloves put away, she retrieves the sketchbook, flipping to a blank page. ]
You're gonna wind up financing your own stalkers like that.
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Date: 2019-12-16 02:32 am (UTC)[ Jaime sniffs. ]
He didn't know what I was gonna tip him in the first place, so how would he know whether or not it was double?
[ Okay, it was probably double of a bad tip, but Jaime's not going to say that out loud. He's a good tipper! He's got the funds! So nobody really needs to know that he probably tipped him a little too much, considering the grief. Whatever, it's fine. ]
Besides, if he tries to stalk us, I'll sic Khaji on his ass. He'll terrorize all of his electronics. It'll be great. Right, Khaj?
[ Khaji agrees a little too emphatically. ]
...if he's an actual stalker, [ he scolds him, sitting down and starting to shove spoons in the take-out containers. ]
You should eat some while it's still hot too.
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