[Thread] I keep my head uptight, I make my plans at night

[bowyourheadslow]

Characters: OU!Shadow, OU!Rouge
Where: Mui-Enas
When: Late night
Summary: Rouge is up unusually late, and Shadow wants to know why that is.
Warnings: None?

Comments

[consideritmine]

The night had been unusually restless for her. After those recurring nightmares at stopped (permanently, she hoped), she had finally been able to sleep relatively soundly. Yet here she was, up for a couple more hours than she had intended. The chance of escape was nearing once more and with it, came scattered thoughts about things she never normally worried about. Things that were insignificant and unchangeable were all that was keeping her awake. Why did she have to start wondering about them at a time like this?

The sound of the door opening and closing registered with her, but not enough to cause her to pay attention to it. It wasn't until Shadow spoke that her eyes were drawn towards the source of the noise. Time must have flown by if it was already about the time he returned to the apartment.

"Hm?" came her instinctive response. She shook her head and moved her hand back down to rest on the table as her mind quickly went back over what he had just said. "I couldn't sleep."

[bowyourheadslow]

"Any reason why?"

For a while, she'd been having a hard time due to the occasional nightmare, he knew that - he'd caused them, of course, albeit unintentionally. But she hadn't suffered from them for a month or two now, as far as he could tell. Sure, it would be easy enough to hide it from him, but hopefully she was over that by now.

Then again, these things could strike much longer after the fact than they had any right to. He knew that well enough.

[consideritmine]

She hesitated at the question. Speaking of personal matters was something she was very unused to and normally avoided. It couldn't hurt to tell him, though. There was no reason or way that Shadow would exploit any information about her and maybe it'd help.

"I was thinking about my parents," she said finally.

[bowyourheadslow]

That was unusual; when did she ever think about them? Surely more often than she spoke of them, for that almost never happened. Did she miss them, perhaps?

Shadow took a seat at the table and placed his chin in his palm, elbow on the tabletop. He said nothing, but sat unmoving with his attention fully on her, ready to listen, should she wish to volunteer information.

[consideritmine]

Well, this was a nice. If he was going to stick around, it couldn't hurt to go on.

"I can't believe I haven't spoken to them in so long," here she paused to sip her drink before continuing. "Being around here for over a year is almost enough to make a girl regret it."

[bowyourheadslow]

Her sipping at her drink reminded him that he should probably eat something. He'd have to check on their diminishing food supplies first. Damned Keepers, chasing off the Indigeo like that. Ugh.

"What are they like?" he asked. He couldn't help but be interested - this was a novel subject, after all. While family life wasn't typically something he cared much about, he knew next to nothing about Rouge's parents, whereas in her own time, she knew more about his upbringing than his amnesiac self could remember.

[consideritmine]

"Well, they were fairly normal, I suppose. They were a bit busy at times, but when it came to anything important, they made time for me." She smiled at the memories, temporarily forgetting what she had been worrying about earlier. "I remember when I got older, they were both wary when I'd hang around boys, especially my father. Rightfully so, I think~"

[bowyourheadslow]

That got a small smile from him as he shook his head a little. Indeed, he'd had reason to worry about his daughter, if her actions here in Econtra were any indication. She was a thief of quite a bit more than jewels and money, when she wanted to be.

Shadow kept quiet, figuring she probably had more to say about them without needing to be interrupted by him. She was the talkative one of the team, after all.

[consideritmine]

When he didn't offer any input, she did indeed continue. Filling in the silence when they were together was second nature by now, even when the type of topic they were on was strange to talk about.

"As hard as it may be to believe," she said jokingly, "you could say I was a bit spoiled growing up. Most of what I wanted, within reason, they got me. They were even willing to pay for several different lessons when I wanted to try out multiple things as a child. I don't know how they afforded it, to be honest."

[bowyourheadslow]

"What sort of lessons?" he asked, not actually entirely sure what she meant here. Private tutorship for certain subjects? Or an instrument, maybe? ... That was a funny image, actually, Rouge playing an instrument of some sort. He wasn't sure why, though. Perhaps because her hobbies tended to revolve around what would make her the most money the quickest, or what would yield other sorts of shiny valuables.

There was a twinge of something else he couldn't quite place, either. Jealousy, perhaps. What would it have been like, to be brought up as everyone else was, with regular schooling and lessons and... whatever else children normally did? Not that he resented the Professor or that he wished his "childhood," if it could be called that, was any different from what it had been. But there was so much he didn't know that others seemed to take for granted sometimes. What would his life have been like if it had been more like theirs?

[consideritmine]

She shrugged and finished off her drink. "It depended on what phase I was in. There were times when I wanted to try a certain instrument or dance style and eventually, I decided to try kickboxing which was the first thing I decided to actually stick with. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a closet back home devoted to everything I tried out." As she spoke, she idly played with her mug on the table. This was quite the trip down memory lane for her and the first one she had. It was odd to realize that little decisions like what classes to keep attending helped shape what skills she'd have in the future. She couldn't imagine how things would have turned out if she had chosen ballet or the piano over kickboxing.

[bowyourheadslow]

"Hm." Made sense. He wished she would elaborate on things, rather than describing them so generally, but he wasn't exactly going to insist on more detail when it didn't really matter beyond satisfying his curiosity.

"What do your parents do for a living?" She'd mentioned wondering how they afforded everything they had given her, so it couldn't be much of anything unusual. But then how had she come by her government job? Did they actually recruit from the public for positions like that? Or had they offered the position to her much like they'd offered his to him?

[consideritmine]

"Last I heard from them, my father had some desk job. I can't remember the name of the company, but I think it sent out supplies to the businesses in the area. He didn't really care to talk about it much. My mother worked at the daycare for reasons I'm still not sure of. I don't know how she could put up with kids all the time, but she enjoyed it."

[bowyourheadslow]

It was strange to think that Rouge had come from such simple beginnings, although he couldn't decide why. Perhaps the way she lived her life suggested more of a familiarity with decadence and prosperity. Not that he'd thought of her as rich either, but comfortably-well off, anyway. And he supposed she was, with her GUN paychecks, but that her parents weren't the same somehow was odd to him. Of course, he really had no way of knowing what was normal and what wasn't.

"How did you get your job with GUN, then?" Okay, his thought process and how he'd arrived at that question probably weren't obvious, but it had made sense to him.

[consideritmine]

She paused to stare curiously at him. That question was bound to come eventually, she just didn't think it'd come now. Regardless of when it came, she saw no reason not to answer it.

"It was shortly after I left home. I arrived in a city I had never been in before late at night and in stroke of foolishness, I thought it'd be fun to break into a warehouse GUN had there. It wasn't the hardest thing to hack to get into, but I ended up tripping and alarm. Somehow, I was able to evade them for a while and my inexperience got me caught. I guess they decided to take pity on me because I was young, since they gave me two options; I could either go to jail or show them exactly how I got in, so they could improve security. I overheard them talking about how they needed more agents while I was at GUN HQ and inquired about joining their training program. They didn't trust me right away, of course, but obviously I made it~"

[bowyourheadslow]

"My guess wasn't far off the mark," he said, fully aware of course that he hadn't actually informed her of his speculations. He wasn't too surprised - what better way to prove your value to them than a demonstration of skill? And Rouge was skilled, alright. Especially by his time, although possibly he was under the impression that she'd grown in ability in that time because he'd done more work with her since.

Leave it to GUN to hire thieves and liars and murderers, he thought. Their best agents were a band of untrustworthy criminals, led by a bitter old tyrant - and yet, they were the best people on the planet for the job. Funny how that happened, sometimes.