[ action post + phone call to Zack ]
[ Kunsel's feeling better. Given the state he was in before, though, pretty much anything is better in comparison. But he's clean, he's (arguably) fed, and he's called Angeal back to tell Angeal where to find him. (He's at Kira's cafe now, Angie.) So, he's better. The chocobo egg is clean now too, and he's got it swaddled in a towel Kira was kind
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Hey there, beautiful. Did I wake you up? Sounds windy. ...you're not sleeping outside again, are you? You're gonna catch a cold.
[ When he first picked up the phone to call, Kunsel fully intended not to hold back and and tell Zack straight up where he's been, but... After hearing Zack's voice, he just wants to hold on to that peace a little longer. Just a little longer. He's reluctant to speak of it at all, and with each passing second his reluctance grows, but...
...he could really use is best friend right now. And he knows he can count on Zack, no matter what.]
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But not necessarily with Kunsel. He was the type of friend who called for no reason like that. There had been several instances in the past where Kunsel had called for the specific purpose of telling Zack that he'd just walked up eleven flights of stairs without breaking a sweat, and other such random information. So he didn't mind it this time, it was one of those things he'd missed all these years.]
I'm on a roof.
[Catching a cold is quite honestly the least of his worries. Any injury from that day had healed, though if he focused on it then he would eventually feel the familiar aches. The wing still tugged at his shoulder, though now he could move it a little properly to shield his bare skin from the wind's chill. Hell, he'd gone through worse than the sniffles ( ... )
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[ Kunsel manages a quiet, breathless little laugh at the image, shaking his head a little at the mental image of Zack napping on a roof somewhere. He holds on to the peaceful image, managing to keep it for a few brief seconds before it's adulterated by the things Kunsel witnessed on the farm, and Kunsel flinches away from the thought. He keeps imagining horrible things he doesn't want to think about but envisions all the same. Terrible images of Chloe and Billy, of Bill trying to save them and Kunsel just not being there when they needed him. Of Sion, of their last mission, the deafening sound of the shotgun blast. And, for some reason, Zack. Hurt, alone, dying somewhere. It's just his imagination, because his attack that day. It's just his imagination, he knows. But that doesn't make it any less numbing, and less frightening. He can't seem to shake the feeling that even though they're all here now, he ( ... )
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[He would've liked to keep going with that, even though discussing his puppy-related antics is anything but enjoyable, but when Kunsel's tone changes, that worry that he thought he wouldn't have to deal with at the start of the conversation suddenly surfaces. Certain phrases are only used when something unpleasant needs to be discussed, and "we can tell each other anything" is one of them.]
'Course we can. S'what best friends do.
What's wrong?
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...I went. Couple days ago.
[ Kunsel's breath catches here as he tries to go on with the story, but it's hard to put what he saw into concrete thoughts, much less coherent words. It's still mostly a blur of events, punctuated by images of terrible, stark vividness. Like Chloe's eyes. Like the rust pattern on the shovel's blade, flecked with blood spatter. Like the walls of the barn, painted over in red. ]
...everyone's dead. Bill and the kids. The chocobo. Murdered. Slaughtered. I... It was just a stupid little farmstead out in nowhere. I never... Never thought--
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[There's just silence on Zack's end for a while. He wasn't expecting good news, he knew that much, but he certainly wasn't expecting anything along the lines of . . .
Dammit. Only a month he'd been here and already, everything was going to Hell faster than his time back in SOLDIER. His own incident that resulted in the black feathers he was only now getting a little more accustomed to, Cloud's several run-ins with the murderous space alien, everything that Kunsel had to go through - what now? More innocent lives were taken away every moment of every day (he knew exactly who was responsible) and who knew what it was going to take for it to stop? What if they couldn't? Who was going to be hurt or killed next ( ... )
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[ Kunsel pauses here, contemplating his own words. He's not really sure if he's lying to Zack or not. Then he lets out a soft puff of a sigh, shaking his head as he runs his fingers over the crack in his chocobo egg's shell. ]
...I'll be okay. I just keep thinking stupid thoughts. Like I should've been there. Like I... It wouldn't have helped even if I was, you know? But still, they... They treated me like family. They were like family. They were like family, and I...
I'll be okay.
I could use seeing you, though. Got something for you.
[ He knows he's downplaying the seriousness of what happened, but it's almost instinctive. He knows that Zack understands the depth of it without Kunsel putting it explicitly into words. For all Zack overlooked, situations like this were never among them. And so Kunsel knows the burdens Zack puts on himself, and does his best not to add to them. Because when all was said and done, Bill and his kids were still dead. The chocobo Kunsel had taken care of for the last five years were ( ... )
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Where are you? I'll head over right now.
[That's about all he can manage. There are several things he could tell him, but everything doesn't quite make it past his lips. But he can promise that he'd be there. It's all he'd seemed to be doing lately, travelling back and forth between people who'd needed him to be there, and he was good at it. The hero business, not so much, but comforting a friend in need he could do ( ... )
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[ Kunsel manages another soft laugh at that, but he finds a strange feeling of numbness has begun to settle into him. Even though he's laughing, he finds that he doesn't feel anything resembling the emotions the laughter makes him feel. At the same time, the anxiety in his chest feels deadened, not gone but no longer as overwhelming as before. It feels distanced from him, and he's almost glad it only not for how unsettled the numbness makes him. It makes him feel not like himself, and that bothers him.
But he doesn't worry about it too much for now. Zack's coming to see him, after all, which means he had to come up with something resembling coherent directions. ]
Let's see...
[ Kunsel manages to make directions with the help of a map from the desk and relays it all to Zack, repeating it a few times to make sure Zack doesn't forget or ( ... )
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I got'cha. Four-sixteen, climbin' the outside drainpipe is a no go.
[Of course, now the only thing to worry about were the looks other people would give him at the hotel. The long coat that Angeal had managed to find for him did a good job of covering most of the wing, anybody walking by from a distance wouldn't be able to tell, but that was while he'd hurried through the city late at night with few onlookers. Up close, there was obviously something underneath the material, and the tips of black feathers would occasionally peek out from the bottom. Considering all the ( ... )
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