The mighty continents divided
WHO: Keith Anyan (prodigitalson) and Jonah Matsuka (loveyourenemy)
WHERE: A sad basement somewhere in the City.
WHEN: Tonight!
WARNINGS: Nope.
SUMMARY: Matsuka comes to drag Keith out of hiding. Awkwardness and confessions ensue.
FORMAT: Prose.
The narrow stairs to which the landlord directs Matsuka lead to the door to a basement. It's really rather dreary.
The landlord in question is a man who was intrigued by the reports on Keith in the days when MAJESTY was formed. He probably has some sort of complex from reading too many superhero stories as a kid that now has him way too eager to help some soulful-looking fallen hero in his quest for redemption just like in the stories. Anyway, he's letting Keith stay in the basement of the small brown apartment building in exchange for setting up and maintaining a cutting-edge network to serve the old building's new internet needs.
And staying there Keith is, in between stalking the news for information on Vulcanus. He's currently sitting on the sad little bed in the corner, staring pensively at a poster in his hands. Even from a distance, his thoughts bubble with tragic uncertainty and, below that, the familiar old loneliness.
* * *
Matsuka is more than a little dismayed at the state of Keith's current accommodations - although he's at least polite enough to hide it until he's out of sight of the landlord. It's the feelings he can read from Keith that bother him the most, in any case.
He knocks lightly at the door, but it's more of a formality than anything. He's too worried about Keith to let himself be turned away.
Keith? I'm going to come in.
And then he lets himself in. It's a liberty he once would never have dared taken, but many things have changed since then.
* * *
Keith doesn't expect that at all. He's too used to Matsuka asking for permission. He barely registers that I'm going to come in, with a sudden spike of surprise, before Matsuka is through the door and in the room. Which means he doesn't have time to get up from the bed and put on a stoic, reserved, it's-not-so-bad front for him. Matsuka gets to see him sitting there, gazing sorrowfully at the advertisement for Vulcanus (it reads WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, TOGETHER). For a second, anyway.
Then he's standing up, the poster still in one hand, and trying to make his face a mask again. He doesn't do that as much anymore--in fact, he's been making an effort to do otherwise--but for now, he knows he has to. It took him a while to figure out how to deal with Matsuka in the City, after...everything that happened back home, you see. But MAJESTY and the appearance of Vulcanus made his path clear. He's going back into danger, and this time he's not going to let Matsuka be hurt following him. It's the very least he can do.
So he faces the other man with a steely resolve, or at least an attempt at it. "Matsuka. Did you have something to tell me?" But his tone, at least, is gentler than it once was. He'll try to keep Matsuka away, but he won't use his old methods to create that distance. Not ever again.
* * *
Matsuka falters a little once he's through the door and actually in the room - partly old habits dying hard, but mostly the sight of the place, and Keith sitting there, and the sense of his determination and his loneliness. He'd steeled himself, meaning to come in strong and stern, or at least as much of either as he could manage, but all of those intentions are quickly swamped by compassion.
"Why are you staying in a place like this?" he asks quietly.
* * *
In turn, Keith's own hesitation is almost palpable--certainly to someone with Matsuka's abilities. He looks around at the dimly-lit room. "It isn't worse than quarters in a station under Superior Domination. I know that now."
But that's changing the subject, and he's not very good at it, and he knows it. Pressing his mouth into a dissatisfied line, he turns back to Matsuka. "There are few career paths available to me right now. Vulcanus has let my release from the hospital stand, so I don't have the police to fear, but I have a reputation." Dissonance in his mind: he knows this isn't really true, that the City at large isn't shutting him out, that this is as much about punishing himself as anything practical. He's lying.
* * *
Matsuka won't let that pass. Not any more. "That isn't why," he says softly, ducking his head a little in spite of himself with the awareness of how far he's pushing. "You're still trying to do everything alone."
* * *
Keith catches his breath at that, his eyes widening slightly in helpless surprise. "I don't have much choice," he says after a moment. "Maybe it's inevitable. Alone is how I begin and end."
* * *
At those words, Matsuka's head jerks upward, some of his earlier resolve coming back to him. "Of course you have a choice! You've had one all along. You didn't understand it before, but now--" He's crossing all kinds of boundaries he feels like he probably shouldn't, but now that he's going he can't very well stop. "At least admit it! This is what you're choosing. Because you think that it's all you deserve."
* * *
And then Keith is trying again, so very hard, to keep his expression neutral: his mouth a thin line, his eyes as blank as he can manage them. But that's not very effective when he's talking to a psychic, now is it? The loneliness roils again beneath the surface, the longing for a companionship he doesn't entirely understand.
He says evenly, "You're right."
* * *
Matsuka subsides a little, and his voice becomes softer again, but no less earnest. "But it isn't true," he says, holding out his hands as though pleading for Keith to listen to him. "Whatever's already happened, it's still not too late as long as you're here. Didn't you promise that you wouldn't do this alone?"
* * *
Silence for a moment. Keith's gaze has grown a little distant now. He did promise that. Is it so easy for him to go back on his promises? But the truth is that it's not about promises or breaking them--it's about something much deeper and simpler. Habit. He's used to being alone. He's used to pushing people away. Unlearning it seems almost too hard for him.
He tries, once more, to cling to that old routine, albeit by a new name. "I've asked too much of you already. This will be dangerous. I won't see you hurt for me again."
* * *
Matsuka smiles, genuine but also faintly pained, and he shakes his head. "I'm grateful," he says, "but that isn't something that's for you to decide." He takes a careful step towards Keith, and then a second one. "No matter what, I don't want to leave you alone. Even if you tell me to."
* * *
For just a second, Keith looks like he'll step back, away from Matsuka. But before he can really think about it, the longing has overpowered the fear, and he takes a single step forward instead. "I can't convince you otherwise." It sounds almost like a question, but it isn't. He knows it's true. "Why?"
* * *
The question gives Matsuka pause, and suddenly he looks down, finding it hard to go on meeting Keith's eyes. It's a simple question. There are a lot of answers he could give to it, and he hesitates for what seems like a long time, clasping his hands in front of himself to keep from fidgeting.
In the end, there's really only one answer that matters. He looks up to meet Keith's eyes again, solemn and a little anxious.
"It's because I love you."
* * *
The perfect blankness so carefully cultivated on Keith's face shatters into a million pieces of confusion, regret, guilt--and hope.
No one has ever told him that before. No one.
Maybe he knew, on some level. It's how he was able to make his own choice in the end to go against everything the Mother Computer programmed into him: the realization that someone thought him worth saving. But that isn't the same as hearing so plainly that he is loved. It doesn't take psychic powers to read the gratitude pouring off him.
It's too much. Helplessly, he says, "I don't know if I can accept that. But it isn't my feeling to deny. Matsuka--" His voice catches, and he goes mute. But--
Thank you.
* * *
Matsuka ventures a hesitant and faintly relieved smile. He honestly wasn't at all sure how Keith was going to take hearing that particular revelation. This... it feels like progress. A step in some direction.
"You don't have to stay here," he says softly. "It's not good for you."
Keith casts his gaze around the room for a minute, uncertainly. When he eventually looks back at Matsuka, he too is offering a small, awkward smile. "I don't know what's good for me." His tone is almost too casual for such a truth. "But I think you're right this time."
* * *
It's encouraging; Matsuka's smile brightens just a little in response. "There's room in my apartment," he offers almost hopefully. "Come back with me." Surely, he thinks, it won't be a problem, now that Keith no longer has to hide. Surely this will be all right now.
* * *
And yet: hesitation. "After everything," Keith says. "You'd want me with you so much?"
Maybe the idea of living with someone is just too alien to him. Or maybe the whole 'I love you' thing hasn't quite sunk in yet.
* * *
"Ah--" Matsuka falters again, looking embarrassed now, eyes dropping once more. "...I just want to know that you're all right," he admits, after a moment of awkward hesitation. "And not alone all the time. You don't have to, but - I wouldn't mind it." At least, he amends silently to himself, he's pretty sure he wouldn't mind.
* * *
Slowly, tentatively, Keith reaches out. "I might not be all right." He almost touches Matsuka's hands, almost; but in the end he can't quite bring himself to yet. There's still far too much that could pass between them that he isn't quite ready to share. "Nevertheless. I'll come back with you."
* * *
If Matsuka reached out just a little, he could take Keith's hand himself, but maybe, right now, that would be a little too far. He's gotten the concession he came for, even if it took revealing a little more than he was ready for to do it. It's enough for now.
"Thank you," he says.
WHERE: A sad basement somewhere in the City.
WHEN: Tonight!
WARNINGS: Nope.
SUMMARY: Matsuka comes to drag Keith out of hiding. Awkwardness and confessions ensue.
FORMAT: Prose.
The narrow stairs to which the landlord directs Matsuka lead to the door to a basement. It's really rather dreary.
The landlord in question is a man who was intrigued by the reports on Keith in the days when MAJESTY was formed. He probably has some sort of complex from reading too many superhero stories as a kid that now has him way too eager to help some soulful-looking fallen hero in his quest for redemption just like in the stories. Anyway, he's letting Keith stay in the basement of the small brown apartment building in exchange for setting up and maintaining a cutting-edge network to serve the old building's new internet needs.
And staying there Keith is, in between stalking the news for information on Vulcanus. He's currently sitting on the sad little bed in the corner, staring pensively at a poster in his hands. Even from a distance, his thoughts bubble with tragic uncertainty and, below that, the familiar old loneliness.
* * *
Matsuka is more than a little dismayed at the state of Keith's current accommodations - although he's at least polite enough to hide it until he's out of sight of the landlord. It's the feelings he can read from Keith that bother him the most, in any case.
He knocks lightly at the door, but it's more of a formality than anything. He's too worried about Keith to let himself be turned away.
Keith? I'm going to come in.
And then he lets himself in. It's a liberty he once would never have dared taken, but many things have changed since then.
* * *
Keith doesn't expect that at all. He's too used to Matsuka asking for permission. He barely registers that I'm going to come in, with a sudden spike of surprise, before Matsuka is through the door and in the room. Which means he doesn't have time to get up from the bed and put on a stoic, reserved, it's-not-so-bad front for him. Matsuka gets to see him sitting there, gazing sorrowfully at the advertisement for Vulcanus (it reads WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD, TOGETHER). For a second, anyway.
Then he's standing up, the poster still in one hand, and trying to make his face a mask again. He doesn't do that as much anymore--in fact, he's been making an effort to do otherwise--but for now, he knows he has to. It took him a while to figure out how to deal with Matsuka in the City, after...everything that happened back home, you see. But MAJESTY and the appearance of Vulcanus made his path clear. He's going back into danger, and this time he's not going to let Matsuka be hurt following him. It's the very least he can do.
So he faces the other man with a steely resolve, or at least an attempt at it. "Matsuka. Did you have something to tell me?" But his tone, at least, is gentler than it once was. He'll try to keep Matsuka away, but he won't use his old methods to create that distance. Not ever again.
* * *
Matsuka falters a little once he's through the door and actually in the room - partly old habits dying hard, but mostly the sight of the place, and Keith sitting there, and the sense of his determination and his loneliness. He'd steeled himself, meaning to come in strong and stern, or at least as much of either as he could manage, but all of those intentions are quickly swamped by compassion.
"Why are you staying in a place like this?" he asks quietly.
* * *
In turn, Keith's own hesitation is almost palpable--certainly to someone with Matsuka's abilities. He looks around at the dimly-lit room. "It isn't worse than quarters in a station under Superior Domination. I know that now."
But that's changing the subject, and he's not very good at it, and he knows it. Pressing his mouth into a dissatisfied line, he turns back to Matsuka. "There are few career paths available to me right now. Vulcanus has let my release from the hospital stand, so I don't have the police to fear, but I have a reputation." Dissonance in his mind: he knows this isn't really true, that the City at large isn't shutting him out, that this is as much about punishing himself as anything practical. He's lying.
* * *
Matsuka won't let that pass. Not any more. "That isn't why," he says softly, ducking his head a little in spite of himself with the awareness of how far he's pushing. "You're still trying to do everything alone."
* * *
Keith catches his breath at that, his eyes widening slightly in helpless surprise. "I don't have much choice," he says after a moment. "Maybe it's inevitable. Alone is how I begin and end."
* * *
At those words, Matsuka's head jerks upward, some of his earlier resolve coming back to him. "Of course you have a choice! You've had one all along. You didn't understand it before, but now--" He's crossing all kinds of boundaries he feels like he probably shouldn't, but now that he's going he can't very well stop. "At least admit it! This is what you're choosing. Because you think that it's all you deserve."
* * *
And then Keith is trying again, so very hard, to keep his expression neutral: his mouth a thin line, his eyes as blank as he can manage them. But that's not very effective when he's talking to a psychic, now is it? The loneliness roils again beneath the surface, the longing for a companionship he doesn't entirely understand.
He says evenly, "You're right."
* * *
Matsuka subsides a little, and his voice becomes softer again, but no less earnest. "But it isn't true," he says, holding out his hands as though pleading for Keith to listen to him. "Whatever's already happened, it's still not too late as long as you're here. Didn't you promise that you wouldn't do this alone?"
* * *
Silence for a moment. Keith's gaze has grown a little distant now. He did promise that. Is it so easy for him to go back on his promises? But the truth is that it's not about promises or breaking them--it's about something much deeper and simpler. Habit. He's used to being alone. He's used to pushing people away. Unlearning it seems almost too hard for him.
He tries, once more, to cling to that old routine, albeit by a new name. "I've asked too much of you already. This will be dangerous. I won't see you hurt for me again."
* * *
Matsuka smiles, genuine but also faintly pained, and he shakes his head. "I'm grateful," he says, "but that isn't something that's for you to decide." He takes a careful step towards Keith, and then a second one. "No matter what, I don't want to leave you alone. Even if you tell me to."
* * *
For just a second, Keith looks like he'll step back, away from Matsuka. But before he can really think about it, the longing has overpowered the fear, and he takes a single step forward instead. "I can't convince you otherwise." It sounds almost like a question, but it isn't. He knows it's true. "Why?"
* * *
The question gives Matsuka pause, and suddenly he looks down, finding it hard to go on meeting Keith's eyes. It's a simple question. There are a lot of answers he could give to it, and he hesitates for what seems like a long time, clasping his hands in front of himself to keep from fidgeting.
In the end, there's really only one answer that matters. He looks up to meet Keith's eyes again, solemn and a little anxious.
"It's because I love you."
* * *
The perfect blankness so carefully cultivated on Keith's face shatters into a million pieces of confusion, regret, guilt--and hope.
No one has ever told him that before. No one.
Maybe he knew, on some level. It's how he was able to make his own choice in the end to go against everything the Mother Computer programmed into him: the realization that someone thought him worth saving. But that isn't the same as hearing so plainly that he is loved. It doesn't take psychic powers to read the gratitude pouring off him.
It's too much. Helplessly, he says, "I don't know if I can accept that. But it isn't my feeling to deny. Matsuka--" His voice catches, and he goes mute. But--
Thank you.
* * *
Matsuka ventures a hesitant and faintly relieved smile. He honestly wasn't at all sure how Keith was going to take hearing that particular revelation. This... it feels like progress. A step in some direction.
"You don't have to stay here," he says softly. "It's not good for you."
Keith casts his gaze around the room for a minute, uncertainly. When he eventually looks back at Matsuka, he too is offering a small, awkward smile. "I don't know what's good for me." His tone is almost too casual for such a truth. "But I think you're right this time."
* * *
It's encouraging; Matsuka's smile brightens just a little in response. "There's room in my apartment," he offers almost hopefully. "Come back with me." Surely, he thinks, it won't be a problem, now that Keith no longer has to hide. Surely this will be all right now.
* * *
And yet: hesitation. "After everything," Keith says. "You'd want me with you so much?"
Maybe the idea of living with someone is just too alien to him. Or maybe the whole 'I love you' thing hasn't quite sunk in yet.
* * *
"Ah--" Matsuka falters again, looking embarrassed now, eyes dropping once more. "...I just want to know that you're all right," he admits, after a moment of awkward hesitation. "And not alone all the time. You don't have to, but - I wouldn't mind it." At least, he amends silently to himself, he's pretty sure he wouldn't mind.
* * *
Slowly, tentatively, Keith reaches out. "I might not be all right." He almost touches Matsuka's hands, almost; but in the end he can't quite bring himself to yet. There's still far too much that could pass between them that he isn't quite ready to share. "Nevertheless. I'll come back with you."
* * *
If Matsuka reached out just a little, he could take Keith's hand himself, but maybe, right now, that would be a little too far. He's gotten the concession he came for, even if it took revealing a little more than he was ready for to do it. It's enough for now.
"Thank you," he says.