[4th FLOOR] what protects our hearts

[twoninths]

Characters: Reverie/Aizen (iniquicity), Argent/Christopher (twoninths), Ran/Gertrude (nobodysheroine)
Date/Time: August 28, mid-afternoon
Location: The City Without Walls
Rating: PG
Summary: When the elevator finally stops, Argent, Ran, and Reverie are just in time to witness a memory from Argent's childhood.

Comments

[twoninths]

Argent blinked as the memory -- that's what it had to be -- faded away, leaving only the faintest sense of understanding behind. That boy was him; Argent knew that even if the difference in years was enough that they did not resemble one another much except in generalities. The voice was his, though, only younger and higher. The mannerisms, still uncertain and more obviously affected, were too.

In reality, this felt nothing like Argent would have supposed receiving a memory would feel like. The others had talked about it as a revelation, an epiphany, or a nightmare, but this was none of those things. Perhaps that was because he had others with him, perhaps not. Whatever this moment had felt like for the others, for Argent it took almost no additional effort to school his features and body into stillness. He felt calm, even. After all, It was, in most ways, merely confirmation of something he had already suspected about himself.

But if that were entirely true, he mused, he shouldn't feel so bothered by it. It shouldn't have taken

[nobodysheroine]

It took Ran a moment to process exactly what she was seeing. It was as if the world had suddenly become the most immersive panoramic movie theater ever, but instead of some over-budgeted monstrosity not worth her money, it was - well - what was it? She was tempted to ask aloud if this was somebody’s idea of a bad joke or quite possibly the lamest attempt she’d ever seen at being punk’d, when all of a sudden she finally paid attention to the young boy who was making such a fuss.

“Argent?She watched in confused silence for the duration, her eyes trained on the slim boy as he stormed his way through what appeared to be a hospital, but one stolen straight out of a book. But as quickly as it started, it was suddenly over, the lights flickering on overhead, leaving the three of them standing once again in the elevator; a long quiet settled over them before Argent finally spoke. Ran could feel the bright pull of bewilderment on the muscles of her face before they settled down into their normal stations of wariness and suspicion. “A

[iniquiticity]

Reverie was surprised in that he was simply not as taken aback as he thought the sudden elevator departure would have made him. He supposed that perhaps it was simply becoming accustomed to the general oddities of Edensphere, though, he supposed, this also opened a thousand more questions relating to disappearances of a few key people who tended to make things shifted around them. Though it opened up a number of holes in his theories, it allowed for a number of answers to be found - like Gungnir's name

[twoninths]

Ran's words were enough to startle a small, genuine surprise out of Argent, so he nodded as well and gave her hand a fond pat before looking away again, letting himself sink back into thoughtful vagueness. It was much cleaner feeling, on the inside, to simply sweep all of the puzzling or difficult bits of this memory off to some far corner of his mind where it could be turned over and inspected at a detached distance. This was certainly not the correct circumstance for analyzing such matters closely. Even though both Reverie and Ran seemed somewhat preoccupied with their own thoughts, Argent much preferred the safety and familiarity of his own room for matters of the potentially emotionally distressing sort.

He ran a hand through his hair and gave them both a dreamy, if slightly tired, smile and said, "Yes, I am certain we are all law-of-nature-defying snowflakes, my friends. And I thank you both for your concern." This was said with a little tip of his head toward Ran; mostly because he couldn't quite tell if Reverie was in fact

[nobodysheroine]

Ran turned her head towards the door, even as her gaze lingered on his dreamy expression, causing her eyes slide sideways in their sockets. If he was hoping to fool somebody, it wasn't going to work on her -- his nonchalance was practiced and almost completely transparent, and she would have been none-the-wiser if it weren't for her inherent wariness of all things too pleasant and easy, which was exactly how Argent was behaving at this moment. Perhaps this was the way Argent reacted around revelation, or perhaps he had a thing about letting something slip in front of Reverie or even her, or maybe this was merely the way that young men from wherever Argent came from were socialized to behave in moments like these. Or maybe -- and this eventuality wasn't lost on her -- Argent was just a self-repressed jerk who was too selfish to see beyond himself. For a moment, Ran considered all of these things. But in the end, there were a million and one possbilities to consider, and she found herself -- for some reason -- not caring about the

[iniquiticity]

Reverie liked Argent's defensive vagueness. If there was ever a way to hide your thoughts without seeming to hide them, it was probably the best to appear disinterested. But Reverie knew better, being a pretty damn good judge of character himself. But also, like Argent, Reverie preferred his privacy where he could work out his thoughts in plain view and not have to worry about being judged or suspected - though he had a good hunch that all of that had already happened.

It was not the matter that Reverie didn't care about Argent, but as a matter of fact he simply knew better. Argent was fine here and was fine there - clearly, it would take more than death to stop him. Unlike Ran, Reverie did not discard his whys but simply flicked through and shuffled off to the side which whys might have been the correct one. He nodded once to the bookstore, and made a note to check out a number of books, mostly on food, but some on tircks and more than that