[She couldn't possibly know her hair is the same color as Ryne's.]
I'd feel worse about hitting you.
[And now she'll say something like, tch, what makes you think you'd even land a hit to begin with, old man, because he knows how this banter goes. Because there's supposed to be someone here to say things like that. Because whistling is supposed to bring people back from the dead, because orange is supposed to be the color of I want you here with me, and he's far from anything remotely resembling a decent father but he's always loved the people around him more than he's loved himself.
[she starts to, she really does, because she's a shitty trash child and her instinct, always, is to sass, to bite back. her mouth is open and everything, but she stops, and closes it. her jaw works, and she takes a deep breath.]
You shouldn't.
[she says, instead, hands in her pockets. she thinks about what someone else said to her, this week. about how this sort of thing builds and builds until it bursts.]
Whatever fucked you up about what got said up there today, it's going to rot if you let it.
[Though the remark in and of itself is, notably, all but a tacit confirmation of what Gideon speculates. He did get fucked up. He is fucked up. And yes, he's quite possibly going to let it rot, lacking an intervention of some variety.
Rationally he knows this is an intervention. It's not the one he wants, but he can't have the one he wants. But he'd even told Nav herself something similar to that last night, hadn't he? He's good at loving things he knows he can't have. Or at least well-practiced at it.]
Do us both a favor and don't try to provoke it out of me either, will you?
[Gods, he misses them. He misses them all so much and Nav shifts like a chameleon through so many of the traits he'd associate with one of his friends or another. Ryne's eagerness to please. Y'shtola's cutting barbs. Lyse's willingness to fight.
He told them to survive and look at him now. Ever incapable of following his own advice.]
You were close to both of them, weren't you? Aren't you. To Four and her executioner.
[...]
Tell me about them. What they were to each other. The undercurrents of...all that.
Passing close. [she says. but she'll try. she's not exactly sure she can get through it without her voice cracking. she'll just have to deal with it as it happens.]
Lu Bixing's the type of guy who sees the best in everybody. Nobody is hopeless, not to him, there's always some sort of redeeming thing. And - far as I know with Four, she was a nice girl with a shitton of responsibilities. She was afraid of what was going to happen with her gone. And she was... she was sad.
[she clears her throat.]
He saw that. He wanted to fix it by loving her, but sometimes you can't fix that shit. You grow up with it and it becomes part of your lungs. You can't breathe with or without it.
[augh. fuck, there it is, the voice crack. she ignores it.]
[He looks down at his hands instead of at Gideon. It's surprising to see that they're shaking; they usually don't. Hard to say whether that's the residual effects of the adrenaline, or something else altogether.
One life for one world. One life for one world. One life for one world.]
Girls like that do always seem to wind up bearing the burdens that the rest of us benefit from. And there's no amount of love that can change it.
[He shakes his head, struck silent as one of the bitter sentiments that's been thrashing about inside him starts to rear its ugly head again, rising up like bile in the back of his throat, and maybe he could stop it with another hundred hits of the bag but he knows already that Gideon isn't going to let him.]
If that's how he felt then he should've died in her place. He should've died rather than take a single thing from her.
[she's quiet for a minute, letting that roil through her.
and then she moves closer, and crouches down in front of him. steady.]
That doesn't fix anything. [she says, rough. gritty.] He has someone who loves him. It's not fair for him to lose that to a girl who had a shitty life and decided the way she was going to resolve that was to take someone else's life. You get that. I know you do.
[It's not fair, Gideon says, and she's right. He still remembers the exact shape of those same words, the hysteria rising in his lungs. What about me? What about F'lhaminn, what about our feelings?!
It isn't fair. It isn't fair and he'd thought he'd made peace with it, and in his own way he had. He had.
But maybe it's only now just hitting him that being here, being dead, means he's lost Ryne too. No letters carried across the rift in the hands of a most trusted courier. No messages of faith and survival. Not even the hope that someday Y'shtola might find a way back for the rest of them. Another girl who meant everything, ripped away by cruel fate. His Minfilia. His Ryne.]
...Stop.
[His silence stretches on a long time, fighting with unspoken words as he lifts his chin enough to look at the way she puts herself in front of him, the set of her shoulders and the rigidity of her spine, like a watchful sentry. A pillar of stone while his crumbles to dust.
He is so selfish. They're all so selfish. The world asks so much of such young girls.
And finally, his hand lifts from his lap and shifts to touch the side of her face, as soft as her tone isn't. As gentle as his is.]
You don't have to be strong for me. You don't have to be anything for me. Just be you.
[gideon has never, in her life, been touched like this - a gentle hand on the side of her face, something meant to brace and not hurt. and for a second she startles, tenses like she's ready to fight back.
her mouth opens, and then closes. her bright yellow eyes are wide, expression a little helpless.
she's had so many moments like this, after dying. eighteen years of being treated like the elephant in the room, like a particularly disgusting bit of trash nobody wanted to get close to, and then a week of a flurry of people, some kind, some manipulative, some both. it took eighteen years and one week for gideon nav to die, and wake up to a place where people give out these sort of things like it's easy. her chest aches.
this one, though. you just have to be you. this one makes her throat feel tight. she's still wearing that stupid friendship bracelet, the one that matches the one she put around eto's wrist, and it feels like a vice, like it's cutting off circulation.
say something, you big idiot, she thinks.]
... I am. [she says, quieter.] I don't know how to be anything else but this.
[a pause, and she brings a hand up to swipe her thumb under her eye, catching the wetness that's there in a frustrated sort of way.]
[You are quick and able beyond your years. Were you only in a place where you could learn to use these gifts — why, there is no telling what life you might lead...]
Not just what others say you must. Not what the world says you must. Only what you want. If you could have that...do you know what you would wish to be? What you would choose?
That's a loaded question. [she says, a little choked, but. it takes her a minute of swallowing hard and blinking furiously before she just says:] I don't know. Useful.
If I were being embarrassing about it I'd offer you a name.
[If he were offering her a name he'd be projecting like an IMAX.]
...I doubt I could have done it, you know. If it'd been me in his place, and someone I cared for. Giving them the chance to rest in peace has never been my strong suit.
[she's so embarrassed, it almost hurts a little. the ninth is made of iron. this sort of behavior gets dirt kicked in your face - she learned a long time ago crying makes it worse.
but she's not pulling away, because this is something she wants, even if it's hard to let herself be vulnerable at all.]
If they have anything to do with sacrificial horseshit I'm not agreeing to stone cold dick. [she warns, like a hypocrite. she sniffs. and he wipes her tears, and she just. her shoulders come down from her ears.]
You've already made yourself quite clear on that point, rest assured.
[pour one out for gideon's facepaint because by now it's probably a hideous "distraught girl in the nightclub bathroom" mess by now]
First. At least once, before we escape this place, try and see what it feels like to live for yourself. You needn't embrace it, accept it, or even like it. But allow yourself to try it.
[yeah, it really is, she's just given up on trying to fix it because it's a fucking mess. this but not angry. and it'll be even worse by the end of this because he's really just driving a nail into the squishy, sad part of her.]
... Okay. [she says, and it's maybe a little dubious, but. she can try.]
Second. If somehow you do make it out and I don't —
[His finger comes up in a very pointed shush before he's even done interrupting himself, knowing full well the protest that's coming and determined to beat it to the figurative punch.]
— and you should somehow chance to find your way to the star from whence I came, find Tataru Taru and tell her what happened to me. Ask her to help you tell Ryne. She'll understand.
what he says combined with how he ruffles her hair makes another horrible and mortifying rush of tears drip down her face, further fucking up her face paint. she feels ten years old and stupid, leaning a little into the hand.
it takes her a second to reply, even, trying to make sure her voice won't crack, and it does anyway, despite her efforts.]
Everything looks good with my shades. [warbles...] If I go before you, you can take them.
You'd better not. But fair's fair; if it were to happen —
[Unthinkable. Abhorrent. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It can't happen, it cannot happen.
But she likely thought the exact same thing, a minute ago, and if he'd had the right to shush her about it, then he's got to accept the burden of considering it now that it's his turn.]
— I'll take them. ...And look better in them than you.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I'd feel worse about hitting you.
[And now she'll say something like, tch, what makes you think you'd even land a hit to begin with, old man, because he knows how this banter goes. Because there's supposed to be someone here to say things like that. Because whistling is supposed to bring people back from the dead, because orange is supposed to be the color of I want you here with me, and he's far from anything remotely resembling a decent father but he's always loved the people around him more than he's loved himself.
And they're not there.]
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You shouldn't.
[she says, instead, hands in her pockets. she thinks about what someone else said to her, this week. about how this sort of thing builds and builds until it bursts.]
Whatever fucked you up about what got said up there today, it's going to rot if you let it.
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[Though the remark in and of itself is, notably, all but a tacit confirmation of what Gideon speculates. He did get fucked up. He is fucked up. And yes, he's quite possibly going to let it rot, lacking an intervention of some variety.
Rationally he knows this is an intervention. It's not the one he wants, but he can't have the one he wants. But he'd even told Nav herself something similar to that last night, hadn't he? He's good at loving things he knows he can't have. Or at least well-practiced at it.]
Do us both a favor and don't try to provoke it out of me either, will you?
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[don't provoke. but that's what she's good at.]
I'm not about to let you sit in here and sulk, though.
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He told them to survive and look at him now. Ever incapable of following his own advice.]
You were close to both of them, weren't you? Aren't you. To Four and her executioner.
[...]
Tell me about them. What they were to each other. The undercurrents of...all that.
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Passing close. [she says. but she'll try. she's not exactly sure she can get through it without her voice cracking. she'll just have to deal with it as it happens.]
Lu Bixing's the type of guy who sees the best in everybody. Nobody is hopeless, not to him, there's always some sort of redeeming thing. And - far as I know with Four, she was a nice girl with a shitton of responsibilities. She was afraid of what was going to happen with her gone. And she was... she was sad.
[she clears her throat.]
He saw that. He wanted to fix it by loving her, but sometimes you can't fix that shit. You grow up with it and it becomes part of your lungs. You can't breathe with or without it.
[augh. fuck, there it is, the voice crack. she ignores it.]
no subject
One life for one world. One life for one world. One life for one world.]
Girls like that do always seem to wind up bearing the burdens that the rest of us benefit from. And there's no amount of love that can change it.
[He shakes his head, struck silent as one of the bitter sentiments that's been thrashing about inside him starts to rear its ugly head again, rising up like bile in the back of his throat, and maybe he could stop it with another hundred hits of the bag but he knows already that Gideon isn't going to let him.]
If that's how he felt then he should've died in her place. He should've died rather than take a single thing from her.
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and then she moves closer, and crouches down in front of him. steady.]
That doesn't fix anything. [she says, rough. gritty.] He has someone who loves him. It's not fair for him to lose that to a girl who had a shitty life and decided the way she was going to resolve that was to take someone else's life. You get that. I know you do.
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It isn't fair. It isn't fair and he'd thought he'd made peace with it, and in his own way he had. He had.
But maybe it's only now just hitting him that being here, being dead, means he's lost Ryne too. No letters carried across the rift in the hands of a most trusted courier. No messages of faith and survival. Not even the hope that someday Y'shtola might find a way back for the rest of them. Another girl who meant everything, ripped away by cruel fate. His Minfilia. His Ryne.]
...Stop.
[His silence stretches on a long time, fighting with unspoken words as he lifts his chin enough to look at the way she puts herself in front of him, the set of her shoulders and the rigidity of her spine, like a watchful sentry. A pillar of stone while his crumbles to dust.
He is so selfish. They're all so selfish. The world asks so much of such young girls.
And finally, his hand lifts from his lap and shifts to touch the side of her face, as soft as her tone isn't. As gentle as his is.]
You don't have to be strong for me. You don't have to be anything for me. Just be you.
[His Nav.]
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her mouth opens, and then closes. her bright yellow eyes are wide, expression a little helpless.
she's had so many moments like this, after dying. eighteen years of being treated like the elephant in the room, like a particularly disgusting bit of trash nobody wanted to get close to, and then a week of a flurry of people, some kind, some manipulative, some both. it took eighteen years and one week for gideon nav to die, and wake up to a place where people give out these sort of things like it's easy. her chest aches.
this one, though. you just have to be you. this one makes her throat feel tight. she's still wearing that stupid friendship bracelet, the one that matches the one she put around eto's wrist, and it feels like a vice, like it's cutting off circulation.
say something, you big idiot, she thinks.]
... I am. [she says, quieter.] I don't know how to be anything else but this.
[a pause, and she brings a hand up to swipe her thumb under her eye, catching the wetness that's there in a frustrated sort of way.]
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[You are quick and able beyond your years. Were you only in a place where you could learn to use these gifts — why, there is no telling what life you might lead...]
Not just what others say you must. Not what the world says you must. Only what you want. If you could have that...do you know what you would wish to be? What you would choose?
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it'd be scary, to do anything but this.]
That's a loaded question. [she says, a little choked, but. it takes her a minute of swallowing hard and blinking furiously before she just says:] I don't know. Useful.
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The same one that Ryne once craved from him, maybe. The one he was heartless to withhold.]
Loved?
[She taught him well. He's not that heartless anymore.]
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No. [...] Maybe.
... If you want to be embarrassing about it. [she says, face hot.]
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[If he were offering her a name he'd be projecting like an IMAX.]
...I doubt I could have done it, you know. If it'd been me in his place, and someone I cared for. Giving them the chance to rest in peace has never been my strong suit.
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... Yeah. I know. [because she's the same way, and she's realized that.] You put me up there with someone I can't lose and I'd go first. Every time.
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[And the next time her tears threaten to spill over, his thumb gets there first.]
In its place, I'll give you something else. Three promises you can keep to me. Three ways you can be of use.
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but she's not pulling away, because this is something she wants, even if it's hard to let herself be vulnerable at all.]
If they have anything to do with sacrificial horseshit I'm not agreeing to stone cold dick. [she warns, like a hypocrite. she sniffs. and he wipes her tears, and she just. her shoulders come down from her ears.]
But I'll hear you out.
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[pour one out for gideon's facepaint because by now it's probably a hideous "distraught girl in the nightclub bathroom" mess by now]
First. At least once, before we escape this place, try and see what it feels like to live for yourself. You needn't embrace it, accept it, or even like it. But allow yourself to try it.
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... Okay. [she says, and it's maybe a little dubious, but. she can try.]
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[His finger comes up in a very pointed shush before he's even done interrupting himself, knowing full well the protest that's coming and determined to beat it to the figurative punch.]
— and you should somehow chance to find your way to the star from whence I came, find Tataru Taru and tell her what happened to me. Ask her to help you tell Ryne. She'll understand.
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she nods, because... that's reasonable. she doesn't want it to happen, but it's reasonable. and she can do it. she will.]
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[His hand moves one last time, this time sliding up to ruffle her hair.]
If I do predecease you, take my coat. It'll look good with your shades.
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what he says combined with how he ruffles her hair makes another horrible and mortifying rush of tears drip down her face, further fucking up her face paint. she feels ten years old and stupid, leaning a little into the hand.
it takes her a second to reply, even, trying to make sure her voice won't crack, and it does anyway, despite her efforts.]
Everything looks good with my shades. [warbles...] If I go before you, you can take them.
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[Unthinkable. Abhorrent. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It can't happen, it cannot happen.
But she likely thought the exact same thing, a minute ago, and if he'd had the right to shush her about it, then he's got to accept the burden of considering it now that it's his turn.]
— I'll take them. ...And look better in them than you.
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