a long way home. (OPEN)

[adachy]

Characters: thefool, stereophoned, topsicles, hotstuds, doesnthavea, adachy, runandseek, bomberhat, earlship, worthpraise, unforgotten, libraria, verydangerman, farces, ofmanyfocuses, YOU!
Setting/Location: The lobby of an Inn in District One of Sleepywoods.
Date & Time: Day 0 in the morning after waking up.
Warnings: Mild language and Persona 4 spoilers.
Summary: The Inaba crew run into each other and others; confusion and hijinks ensue?
Note: The first two threads will be locked to

Comments

[runandseek]

[Dojima almost wants to laugh. Adachi honestly wants to work? Honestly wants to play detective with him? Of course, of course. He'd suddenly gotten so serious that night, only to run, only to disappear from a hospital full of staff and patients surrounded by a police perimeter to god knows where Souji and Shirogane kept finding every damn suspect in the case, only to leave Dojima behind wanting to know one thing. Why?

But he can't deny the logic, here. Of all things, Adachi is giving him something solid to stand on.]

Right. You want to canvass the area. Gather information. [voice laced with sarcasm (perhaps undeserved... no, Adachi deserves a lot of things) he turns his back to Adachi... now, Dojima almost wants him to disappear. because if this isn't another one of his "chasing the suspect he can never catch" dreams, then...]

[Two breaths later, he turns back around- nope, still there. Dojima sighs, wishing more than ever he had his cuffs with him. He can't just... leave this. He refrains from manhandling Adachi again, as Adachi seems to have no intention of running away... for now.]

We're going back inside. I need to talk to Souji. [He turns towards the door, but he doesn't move. Not until Adachi moves first.]

[adachy]

[ and like clockwork, adachi's smile returns in a flash. he's not stupid, he caught that sarcasm, and he knows it was intentional, too - ha ha, so very funny as always. any time adachi wants to be taken seriously, it's a joke, like his whole life is a joke, so he's used to it by now.

well, at least he's making some sense. seta's a sharp kid - too sharp - but at this point, adachi doubts he knows more than they do. at least it makes more sense to speak with the kids again rather than stand here snapping at each other.

dojima-san's just stressed, that's all. adachi takes a deep breath and nods. just lost his daughter and is mildly delusional. that's fine. i can handle that. ]

See? That's a much better idea, sir. He might not know much more, but your nephew, he's a pretty sharp kid. It's better to ask him than these strangers around.

[ he points at a hume walking nearby. ]

Ahahaha, they haven't been much help.

[ and he glances at him out of the corner of his eye once again before raising an eyebrow, wondering why dojima's still standing there like a bump on a log. fine, adachi will go first. and he does. ]

[runandseek]

[Adachi's act is perfect but it makes Dojima sick to watch, knowing what he knows. He isn't about to say anything just yet, though. If Adachi's going to cooperate, Dojima doesn't want to provoke a fight-or-flight response from him, so he leaves the "maybe you should be in prison" thing alone for now. He doesn't take his eyes off Adachi for longer than a few seconds, though. Adachi may find Dojima's behavior strange, this entire damn fairy village might think it strange, but it makes perfect sense to Dojima to not turn his back to Adachi again.

But none of the kids seemed to mind Adachi casually standing and chatting with them... which was odd, considering the last he remembers seeing them talk to Adachi, they were almost ganging up on him, and were ultimately the ones who brought him in. Dojima doubts they all would have somehow come to some mutual agreement before he interrupted their conversation; supposedly they all arrived in Sleepywoods at the same time, and a few hours was hardly enough to suddenly get along so swimmingly with a convicted murderer.

Supposedly they all arrived at the same time, but...]

What day is it?

[adachy]

Huh?

[ it's a bit of an odd question, but for as out of it as dojima is, adachi guesses he's forgotten. right now, adachi's wondering if their calendar is even relevant in a place like this. ]

Last I checked, it was Monday. December 5th...I think.

[ there's a pause as adachi dabs away sweat from his brow and glances up at the sun, squinting. ]

Sure doesn't feel like December here though.

[ maybe they're in the southern hemisphere... ]

[runandseek]

[By reflex, Dojima looks down at his watch, though he doesn't need to. His memory is perfectly fine. It was Monday for him as well... but March 26, 2012.

December 5th... that night, the kids cornered Adachi.

He's not sure what's going on. Time travelling would be one thing, but where they were on top of all that... but this is starting to make sense, about as much as anything can make sense. Is that why they kept asking him if he was alright? From their perspective, he should still be in the hospital... and from Adachi's perspective, nobody knows yet.

Dojima stops dead in his tracks, eyes suddenly focusing on the innocent look Adachi (carefully?) wore. Nobody knows yet.]

[adachy]

[ adachi stops too, when he realizes the shuffle of dojima's feet has been silenced. he doesn't turn around though, he just sighs and stares at the door of the inn, feeling a slight headache coming on. the hell's he stopping for? weren't they gonna go poke his nephew again? ]

Something the matter?

[runandseek]

[Dojima's eyes never leave Adachi as Adachi sighs and hangs his head. For a second, Dojima is back in Inaba Municipal Hospital, with someone else pushing his wheelchair, watching the partner he knew come back from Junes in chains.]

Yeah. A lot of things.

Change of plans. We can meet up with Souji later. Let's ask around. These people might not know much about where we are now, but I have a feeling they'll know a lot about where they were before. [When they were before.]

[adachy]

[ now dojima's starting to sound more like himself. he immediately feels a bit of relief and turns back to dojima, smiling once again. it's funny how quickly he changes his masks. ]

Now that's more like it. I mean, it's better than standing around inside a lobby waiting for an answer to fall out of the sky.

[adachy]

But where should we start?

[ there are a lot of people around... ]

[runandseek]

[Dojima pauses again, looking around at all the... well... half of them didn't look like they belonged here, but they certainly didn't look like they belonged in Inaba, either. Where should they start? For a moment, Adachi's innocent question calls up another instinct in him. Killer or not, Adachi was... still his junior partner.

It's hard to reconcile this with Adachi's crimes. He knew he couldn't let it consume him, like Chisato's case had, but... it was still hard to let go.

The side he could never see.]

[Ichihara-san would have said:] One witness at a time. C'mon. Don't act like a rookie.

[adachy]

[ derp. he knew that. ...how long's it been since they went out investigating together? more than a month, now...before nanako was kidnapped. it's like old times! except not really because they're in a fairytale village, not nowheresville, and dojima's crazy. (crazier.) ]

So you wanna split up and meet back here later.

[ it comes out as more of a statement than a question. ]

[runandseek]

[abruptly:] No.

...no, just... stay where I can see you. I don't want to lose you.

[adachy]

[ mm. something about that stings, somewhere in his little black murderer heart. you know, the one that's barely there, buried under a whole lot of shit. sometimes he even forgets it's there, but it's all the stupid annoying times like this that he's reminded he's human.

dojima's already lost so much, right? a wife and a daughter, and he's gonna sort-of lose his nephew in a few months. (or at least, he was until he ended up here.) what else has he got? an empty house, a job, and adachi, who hardly thinks of himself as a precious treasure. maybe more like a chunk of mica than a sharply cut diamond - shiny if you hold it up to the light and know where to look, but mostly dull otherwise, and it flakes easily.

he doesn't know what to think of that. is it nice to feel like a possession? does it mean adachi's relying on dojima somehow to continue his existence? or is it totally the other way around?

or maybe they're both still relying on each other, at least for an hour, while they figure this crap out.

and then there's the other option: adachi's thinking way too much about his last words. maybe they were meaningless. but still, there's something nagging at him; adachi often felt slighted by dojima but he's not jaded enough to think that adachi would actually wander off like a child who needs a leash. nah - he's not that stupid. ]

C'mon, sir, I'm not gonna wander off and get mauled. You don't need to put a leash on me.

[ and with that he pats his side for the first time since waking up - his gun is still there. ]

[runandseek]

[The second Adachi reaches for his gun, Dojima reaches for his- yup, still there. He touches the holster, but his first instinct has never really been to draw; crime in Inaba was generally small-time. The movement is abrupt, however, and it takes him a moment to breathe. He didn't trust his ex-partner anymore, but... he was still his partner. He didn't particularly enjoy laying in the hospital, helpless, as his nephew of all people helped Shirogane track Adachi down... but part of him was glad he never had to genuinely take this particular suspect down. He dealt with the aftermath... with the interrogation and conviction, and... that, quite honestly, was already more than he wanted.

He laughs a little, to defuse the (his) mood.]

I'm not so sure. The second I turn my back you're always chatting up some girls or dawdling around.

[He's joking, of course. Just like old times. But he's still tense, and he's glad he has a good excuse or two for it.]

Better safe than sorry.

[adachy]

Yeah, yeah, you're right, as always.

[ adachi's hands fall from his side again as if nothing had happened. the gun is there and probably still loaded, though he doesn't see any madmen running around that might need a bullet through their skulls. (not that he'd have the stomach for that anyway, yeesh.)

he points out in the direction of the second district. ]

I'm going that way, if that's okay.

[runandseek]

[This was always what got to him if he let himself think about this too much at night. Those murders had to be expertly planned... no witnesses, no discernable cause of death, no prints or fibers. But he never pegged Adachi as the calculating type, and even after all this, he didn't seem like a cold-blooded killer who could shoot a man between the eyes (or in the back). But what other type of person would drag a woman's body up a telephone pole? Something didn't add up, but... the only alternative he could ever think of was buying into all that TV World nonsense Souji had yammered about at the station...

So it doesn't surprise Dojima terribly to see that Adachi's gun check was a harmless gesture. He drops his hand from his holster as well and resists the urge to occupy himself with a cigarette again. He had to keep an eye on Adachi, yes, but they genuinely were going to try and dig up some information about their situation...it wouldn't do good to be jumpy when trying to talk to average(?) civvies.]

Good as any way.

[Dojima hangs back, now... always, strangely, waiting for Adachi to lead.]