Waiting for the hint of a spark
For almost a week, an apartment building across the street (and down the block, just a tiny bit) from the Kashtta Tower has played host to a rather tall, morose young man. He's been sitting out in the lobby, on a rather uncomfortable and heavy bench, for... pretty much the whole time. The second day, a pair of little old ladies living on the
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...as it turns out, there is someone in the lobby.
...huh.
Tay's lock wasn't particularly exclusive. He didn't volunteer himself for anything because he's still working things through in his own mind, but when a broken young angel shows up on his doorstep...
Well, turning around and wandering off would not be the right answer here, say. And after shooting the kid's last ward and being forgiven for that, it seems as though some sort of action is in order.
So he approaches. He's not trying to conceal the approach - loud enough that he won't take him by surprise, hopefully, but not loud enough that he can't be ignored if ignoring would be better. But he takes in the bloody clothes, the general air of sleeping-rough, and makes a small noise to clear his throat.
"We could get you cleaned up. If that'd help."
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He'd hardly noticed how much of a mess he looks. No wonder those little old ladies had fussed over him so much.
"I d-don't have..." he starts softly, and clears his throat. "M-my clothes are all, um, i-in the Gauche." What's the point in getting cleaned up if you have to put dirty clothes back on?
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Hell, if all else fails, J will deputize his guardian angel to run off and get something. They move pretty fast when appropriately motivated.
"Sometimes it helps," he says. No, it doesn't fix anything, but sometimes it helps. And at least those little, incremental helping things might eventually ease him into a place wherefrom things can get better.
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Maybe it's all of those things. Or none of them. Mat doesn't really care, 'cause when he thinks about it... getting out of these clothes, being clean, it sounds nice. It sounds like something that might take his mind off everything, just a tiny tiny bit for a tiny tiny moment, and that can put off doing... what he came here to do.
"Y-yeah," he says with a little shrug. "'Kay."
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"...c'mon."
His room is probably best. His, as in the one he stashed the clothes obtained during his Inn work stint in, not the room which apparently has the neatly-ordered remnants of his previous life tucked away in its closets and drawers. (Oh, yes, someone told him about that. And he's... while no longer quite so viscerally opposed to it on principle, he is steering clear of it until he has a reason to poke around.) At least all the dorm rooms have showers.
There's a clean towel sitting in the closet, which he pulls out along with various articles of clothing. ...and a belt. Mat may be freakishly tall, but he's still a scrawny little thing, and most of J's clothes will probably be too big for him.
"Here," he says, laying them out on the room's desk, nudging Mat toward the bathroom. Assuming Mat can navigate the shower on his own, he can just wait and do damage control as it comes. ...not that he would object if he had to clean Mat up - it happens, sometimes, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd had to hold someone up in the showers, even without the sort of agenda most people would associate with that - but unless Mat seems to indicate that he needs it, J would prefer to avoid the can of worms that's usually opened by offering.
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Getting into the shower is simple, though he has to concentrate to keep moving. Hang the towel over the towel rack. Turn the water on, nice and hot (though it probably wouldn't feel nearly as hot to someone with a warmer body temperature). Kick his sneakers off and step out of his clothes. He has a few faded bruises, but he's not injured. A bit stiff, but it's no problem getting his clothes off, putting them into a neat pile in front of the sink.
Once he's in the shower, he just stands under the water, feeling it wash over him, wash the grit away in streaks. The heat and pressure loosens his muscles a bit. The feeling of water streaming over his face feels like tears. And something about the warmth and steam enveloping him is comfort and release, and a week's worth of tears start welling up in his eyes. He can't tell when they start flowing, mingling with the water from the shower, but he knows they do, because his whole body shakes with them.
He can't move to scrub the dirt away. He can't change his mind and dry off. All he can do is stand there and cry and cry and cry, as if turning on the faucet turned his grief on as well.
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All right, then.
He gets up from the chair he was waiting in, moving to the door and tapping a knuckle against it. Again, he's moderating volume - trying not to startle, but trying to be heard. "Mat? Are you all right?"
...if there is an answer, it's lost in everything else. J considers that, resting his forehead against the door, trying to paint a picture of what's going on beyond it from input of his ears alone.
Right. one more try, and if nothing else happens, the potential damage done from bursting in on someone in the shower is less than the potential damage to be done from leaving someone in a fragile emotional state alone in a closed bathroom. "I can come in, if you need me to," he says, waits for thirty seconds, and opens the door to step inside. If there's shock and horror, he can back on out again, or something.
There is no shock and horror, unless shellshock qualifies. And J... J has seen this reaction before.
He exhales, closing the door behind him. There's nothing in his pockets at the moment, though he does toe out of his shoes and socks. Warmth and water is doing a decent job of getting the visible grime off, but he's pretty clearly not in any state to take care of himself right now.
He grabs a washcloth and soap and steps into the shower without stripping down - his clothes will dry, and shedding them is just another delay. He starts in on Mat's back, just between his shoulders, keeping an eye out for cuts and bruises and not so coincidentally trying to ease out the major knots in his muscles as he goes.
"Tell me if you'd like me to stop," he says, keeping his voice low. If Mat's in no state to process language he probably won't be processing how awkward most people of this era would find this and the voice will just be meaningless noise at his shoulder. Either way.
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And then there are hands on his back. That's what Mat's mind focuses on, though he can't get enough focus back from the haze of grief to move or speak or even care that he's naked in front of J. There are hands on his back, and they're gentle, and caring, and it's almost enough to make Mat want to just collapse back against J and be touched.
It was never so important, touch, until it was just him and Nate. Now... now it's what he needs. More than anything, he needs Nate to wrap his arms and wings around him and hold him and promise it'll all be okay, but if he can't have that, someone gentle taking care of him will have to do.
He leans forward a little, to rest his forehead against the tile, and tries to find enough of himself to at least say thank you.
It might take a while.
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So, J is just going to keep cleaning him up. Carefully, steadily, methodically until at least the surface dirt is cleaned. Then he'll reach past him, turn off the water, and lead him out of the shower to towel him off.
...and himself, though that's cursory and has more to do with not dripping on anyone than it does getting himself dry.
He guides Mat out into the main room, and... well. He's a bit gangly and unwieldy to actually dress; J probably could, but it'd be awkward and would only get more so if he climbed a few levels of responsiveness halfway through. So instead he pulls the blanket off the bed and wraps it around Mat, leading him down to sit on the edge of the mattress. And then he settles in beside him, ignoring the fact that he's getting the sheets damp, and just... holds on. Rubs his back. Finds wherever muscles might be re-knotting, works them out again.
Sitting there in silence without motion just makes a demand that the silence be filled. At least so long as he's doing something, it gives the impression that anything else can wait until whatever he's doing is done. Doesn't have to... but it can.
It's been a while since he's done this sort of duty for anyone - but, oddly, not as long as one might expect. There were days, in Indiana...
It's all right. Some things don't go away. And it's a little hard to slip out of practice when procedure was nothing but cobbled-together bits of guesses and instinct and repurposed Information Extractor training in the first place.
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He needed it, though. He knows he did, because it helped. Not a lot, but... enough to make him feel a bit less like a bug squashed on the pavement.
"Thanks," he manages to whisper eventually. He hopes that speaking won't be the end of the contact - he's not sure he's quite ready to be that alone. And loss of that touch, that tactile connection... it feels so much like "alone" right now.
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Yes or no to that, first. Then see if he's hungry, or fatigued, or anything else. Complicated strings of questions are not the way to go here.
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It passes quickly.
"Guess s-so," he responds, but he doesn't move. He's not entirely sure how this is going to work - does he get dressed alone in the bathroom? In the room in front of J? Will J leave the room? His mind's trying to kick back into gear, and he can't really process it all properly, so he just looks over at J and notices how damp he is.
"You're wet."
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"Yeah, I am a little." He shrugs. "I can change too, if it makes you feel better."
He starts standing, keeping a very slight pressure on Mat's back. If Mat wants to stand and be brought over to the pile of clothes on the desk, that's fine; J won't break contact until it's indicated he should. If he wants to let J's hand slip off, if he wants to keep sitting until J brings the clothes over to him, that works too.
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The boxers get pulled on with a steady deliberateness that's a testament to how much of his mind would much rather go curl up elsewhere and not deal with this shit life. The jeans follow, and a shirt. A belt gets slid carefully through the belt loops, and the waistband of the jeans bunches some, but they won't fall down.
And then he stops. There. He's dressed. He's dressed and... he should sit down. Yes. That seems like a good plan, for all that part of the bed is... more than a little damp. He pads over, still barefoot, and sits exactly where he was before, hands twisted together in his lap, staring at nothing.
One step at a time.
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First things first. He follows Mat back, though he's taken a moment to snag his journal on the way to the bed. And then, smooth and natural, the blanket gets drawn up between them to keep him from getting Mat damp while still allowing for the contact Mat seems to be reacting well to, at least.
"Okay." Cleaned and dressed are down; that's good. One foot after the other.
"Do you think you could eat something?" he asks. Not are you hungry, because he's almost certainly not. That doesn't change the fact that food is one of those good things, required for continued living. "Something simple? Tea, juice, bread, fruit...?"
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He might as well eat.
Despite his apathy, though, he does lean against J, shoulder to shoulder and willing it to fill the hole. Just a hold him a little longer, it would work, really, and then he'll be okay.
He can wish. He can hope.
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