[Thread] Cosmos

[rebuildingbonds]

Characters: AU!Jack Atlas, AU!Fudou Yuusei
Where: Roof of apartment 1, I guess?
When: After the move to Ci-Epta. Lol, Ci was practically deserted.
Summary: There is a green comet in the sky all this month, according to Yuusei-mun. Ehehehe. So here's these two, uh, watching it? And getting along in the way that they do.
Warnings: Probably none.

Comments

[rebuildingbonds]

"Somehow, in the midst of that scorn and misguidance... I had allowed you to get close again. So you could say that, yes."

Saying that wasn't easy by any means, even as quietly as he had; much harder than actually figuring it out in the first place. Therefore, Jack hesitated for a long, long moment. He felt his pride shudder again, but after a brief pause, willed it to shut up and deal with the pain, much like he was dealing with it now. It was thoroughly disorienting, and rather off-putting.

Yet, he knew Yuusei probably already knew all this. In fact, he knew for certain she did. She probably knew more of him than he knew of himself, and there were things he probably misunderstood of both of them as well.

Brooding about it, though, was pointless and stupid and certainly not something Jack Atlas should be allowing to continue to linger any longer than necessary. So taking a firm handle on standing tall again rather than resting at the exact same place where he'd fallen for an indeterminate amount of time to come took priority. Even over pride, over dignity, over everything else.

He twitched lightly, as though wanting to get up suddenly as a twinge of doubt sprouted in his mind. "But you already know this, I'm aware. Chances are it's needless for me to say it."

[star_swept]

Yuusei smiled again. Though there was a quality of almost faint irony there in her eyes for an instance, it was veiled in the thick winter night. "Do you think I was ever that far away?" she asked quietly.

It was a good question, after all, and one that she figured she already had the answer to, the real answer, not the one that Jack may or may not have given. But then that was just her ability of almost prophetic foresight regarding him. Not even a book to her, so easy was to read. Perhaps a pamphlet. Perhaps the back of her hand.

In truth, this ability had been born out of more than just heightened and the acutely attuned senses of an orphan left to a slum. It was her judgment. Her connections with people. It was her ability to know and understand someone. All in all, it was Fudou Yuusei, the one who had become a centre when the ultimate foundation of four lives had fallen to murder in the mud.

"Perhaps," Yuusei began again. "But it's good to here you say it." And that was the truth, the kind of validation that was good for anyone in any time.

[rebuildingbonds]

"I'm sure," Jack replied, somewhat stiffly. He had nothing to offer after that, however, so silence hovered about him for a moment while the wind slipped past him, cold as ever. It seemed as though he was searching for something to put out, though it wasn't quite as filled with hesitation anymore, simply a lack of knowing what to say. Finally, though, he regarded Yuusei once again, loosening up with a laugh. Low, reluctantly amused, almost husky; the sound shivered in the night air with the slight shock of something that had long almost been lost to him.

He might have been equally lost at the moment, poised in wait of an answer on the verge of endlessness, but his poise was not that of a lost man. It was strong, stronger than most could imagine, and the determination in him clear to the naked eye: if Jack did not trust her, he would've not spoken at all. There would have been nothing personal in his body language, because his trust was his own to give. His flame no longer flickered so weakly.

"What is it about the stars that makes humans so inclined to look up to them in times of need?"

[star_swept]

Jack, ever roundabout in his own special and thorough way, earned another smile, though if one had have seen it he or she might have thought Yuusei was exasperated. But she was quite relieved in her own way, and the weariness that was breaking was the kind of whole-soul weariness that shows when it is all finally allowed to buckle and surface.

Turning her own gaze upon the stars, she answered in a quiet, mild way, "they have all the answers that we never will. Or at least we can think that, right? What we can't find in ourselves...we find in the heavens, or others."

She fell silent for a moment, paused, as she considered her own words and the strange, claustral truths they may or may not have held. What was she talking about, anyway? Well, just answering questions, and giving what was her answer, in the end.

"They communicate. Like the moon."