Waiting for the hint of a spark
For almost a week, an apartment building across the street (and down the block, just a tiny bit) from the Kashtta Tower has played host to a rather tall, morose young man. He's been sitting out in the lobby, on a rather uncomfortable and heavy bench, for... pretty much the whole time. The second day, a pair of little old ladies living on the
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But she feels those bodybeats, she does (she also heard the door open, but paid less attention to that). And she vaguely recognizes them. So she pokes her head around the edge of the desk, and then bounds over and wraps Mat in a hug. He's the one that always needs all the hugs, in her opinion.
"It's been here since the darkness," she explains.
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"Oh," he says simply.
Great. Now he can't bring himself to step further in, can't bring himself to say why he's here. It's like there's a hand squeezing his heart. Makes it hard to breathe.
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So for a few seconds she just squeezes him in a bear hug, because he needs it. And then she presses a palm over his heart, pantomiming something letting go of it. "Pwff. Need to let go," she tells is, then grins up at him, a sympathetic, sad sort of grin. "Out with it, keep your heart on your sleeve, mister."
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He wishes that tightness, that pain and grief and everything he can't handle could disappear just like that. Pwff. Like a magic spell.
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"Mat?" She approaches him slowly, giving him some space. "Did you need something?"
There's nothing hostile in that question, nothing indifferent, just an honest desire to know if there's something she can help him with.
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"Um," he says, almost inaudibly. "I c-... I c-came to get his th-things."
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Well, it tends to bring out one's protective instincts.
"Don't mind the water -- it's left over from when everything was going to hell. Do you want someone with you?"
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"Um. I... dunno. Y-yes?" He really doesn't know what to do. Also, he's hoping JD isn't here. Sure, he maybe should ask if JD wants any of Nate's stuff, but... well, he'll do that when he can manage it.
And probably over the journals.
But yes, Suzie, he'd like you to come. He probably can't do this alone.
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...as it turns out, there is someone in the lobby.
...huh.
Tay's lock wasn't particularly exclusive. He didn't volunteer himself for anything because he's still working things through in his own mind, but when a broken young angel shows up on his doorstep...
Well, turning around and wandering off would not be the right answer here, say. And after shooting the kid's last ward and being forgiven for that, it seems as though some sort of action is in order ( ... )
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He'd hardly noticed how much of a mess he looks. No wonder those little old ladies had fussed over him so much.
"I d-don't have..." he starts softly, and clears his throat. "M-my clothes are all, um, i-in the Gauche." What's the point in getting cleaned up if you have to put dirty clothes back on?
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Hell, if all else fails, J will deputize his guardian angel to run off and get something. They move pretty fast when appropriately motivated.
"Sometimes it helps," he says. No, it doesn't fix anything, but sometimes it helps. And at least those little, incremental helping things might eventually ease him into a place wherefrom things can get better.
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Maybe it's all of those things. Or none of them. Mat doesn't really care, 'cause when he thinks about it... getting out of these clothes, being clean, it sounds nice. It sounds like something that might take his mind off everything, just a tiny tiny bit for a tiny tiny moment, and that can put off doing... what he came here to do.
"Y-yeah," he says with a little shrug. "'Kay."
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