hold me in your arms tonight.

[coldbrokenlight]

Characters: coldbrokenlight and fallforthesky
When: ...Today?!
Where: Nesreca Lenalee's roommmm.
Rating: Should stay PG-13..!! plus the occasional swear word, maybe.
Summary: The one where Kanda visits and they sit around quietly. Except not really.

Comments

teal... deer......

[fallforthesky]

Lucky for him- though it's less luck and more I don't care anymore, I'll stay here- Lenalee is in.

See, she's been sick. She's been tired. She's been quietly going insane, losing track of the days because when she got sick and got tired, there'd been no one to keep etching them into the wall for her. But out of everything that she's been lately (and she's been a lot of new things), it wasn't prepared for Kanda (hers or otherwise) to come and seek her out.

("Seek her out"- as if she's hard to find these days. Ha ha.)

It never happens.

That's why, when she answers the door, it's slow and wary; she's not sure if it's really him, or if she's just being wishful, or if something's happened (about to happen, happening) and she's needed. But it is Kanda, and he looks so much older, somehow ...fine, so she pulls the door open wider and stands aside, legs quietly knock-kneed. It's clear to anyone who knows where to look that the last four and a half months haven't been easy on her, even if it's only visible in the faded circles under her

tastes like rainbows!!

[coldbrokenlight]

If she wasn't in, he'd probably just sit in her room until she got back and pretend he just arrived when she does. Luckily he doesn't have to.

Or not so luckily, considering her state. Which is... not too different from the others who've been here longer. He's not surprised, and he's not sure he can keep thinking she's better off here than she is back in his world. Maybe it's pointless to try to categorize it like that. Just like it's pointless to wonder how life would be like, if not like this.

Because it is like this. And there's not much they can do about it. (Unless you're Walker, apparently.)

"Visiting." Of sorts. Yeah. "..Is this a bad time?"

Asking beforehand would've been a good idea, Yuu Kanda. Nice job.

DELICIOUS *A*

[fallforthesky]

"N-No!" A little too quickly, but she corrects herself just as. "No, don't worry. It isn't."

Because honestly, what kind of time do they have here beyond too much of it?

She gives a soft laugh and gestures for him to come on in, and don't worry. Her room is bare bones; a table made from plywood and crates, a sunken mattress on the floor... lingering claw marks from an event that feels lifetimes ago with the way time in Nesreca drags along like pulling teeth. "I know it's not much, but come in."

SWEET N' SOUR RAINBOWS *u*

[coldbrokenlight]

His gaze lingers on the claw marks the longest-- where and how and why? --as he steps in and, well. Moves towards the mattress. He doesn't sit down on it, though, because the floor is good enough. Cross-legged, leaning back against the side of it, it isn't much different from back home.

Being the visitor is a bit awkward, but the resulting company is okay. Kind of like how it used to be, years ago, just in reverse. Kind of. That far back isn't too clear anymore.

He eyes the mattress next, picking at the outer part. "..Really can't get much of a decent sleep on these, can you?"

In other words, Lenalee, he's concerned about your health. Not that he's in any better a state, really..

[fallforthesky]

Lenalee wouldn't know; she'd never felt uncomfortable as the visitor. That had been the entire point behind fleeing to Kanda's room.

She sits gingerly on the mattress near to him and stares at the place he'd started picking at without really seeing it. The difference in height feels as if it's separating them, and that's distracting; as if being up here puts them onto different levels somehow (more than just literally), so she scrunches her legs and slides down to join him on the floor. In the tone of someone trying to downplay things, she murmurs, "It's all right," then hesitates and adds, "I've slept on far worse while on a mission."

Which is true- she has. But never for five months. Never paired with constantly less-than-what-they-need food supplies, people she doesn't know, and slow, torturous play weeks that may not grind to bone as quickly as Rhode's games, but still eat away like them. None of this is something Lenalee is going to say. Complaining doesn't fix it, after all.

"You get used to it after a while."

[coldbrokenlight]

He stops when she slides down next to him, turning his attention away from the threads. He can certainly agree with that; working with the Order doesn't necessarily grant you 5-star accommodations wherever you go. A fact that's certainly made itself more known in the past year.

"Yeah." He can tell she's pretending. He does that same. Everyone does. But he isn't tactless enough to point it out.

Glancing over, worry-lines faint on his brow. He's had time to practice these things called emotions and caring.

"Holding up okay?"

[fallforthesky]

"Of course." She says it too quickly, too smooth for it to be entirely honest. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, though; not when her entire life has been stacked upon the building blocks of telling people she's fine so they won't worry.

Sad truth is, such blatant concern on his face (that is to say, blatant in relation to her Kanda) does well to surprise her enough that she can't seem to give an honest answer anyway.

"...What about you?"

[coldbrokenlight]

He surpresses a sigh, all too used to this pattern by now. There's only so many times one can reassure others (and themselves) before it's too much.

If he was capable of frowning any more than that, he probably would be. But he can't really get angry at her for worrying. After knowing her all these years, that's just. How she is. Tenacious about it, too.

But it's normal, right? Friends worry about each other..

"Getting by." At best. He won't think about the worst. He holds his line of sight for a moment, and drops it to the side. "..Don't push yourself too hard."

[fallforthesky]

But she'll last at least once more. As always.

The corners of her mouth purse a little as she looks away, too; partly amused... mostly tired. How does she act around someone she theoretically grew up with and has never met before?

"I won't if you won't, Kanda."

[coldbrokenlight]

A newbie once asked him if he ever cared about the Exorcists at all. Perhaps he did, once upon a time. He never did fully answer that question.

"You do it more than I do, Lenalee." Glancing up again, and.. raising the back of his hand to her forehead. "Getting sick won't help anyone, you know. Take care of yourself too."

[fallforthesky]

Does he really have to answer it, though? If he didn't... well. He probably wouldn't be nearly as tolerant of them. Of Lavi's antics and her nagging and Allen's sharp words and softer glances.

When he check her forehead, her expression falters into mild surprise and she touches his wrist gently.

"I've already been. It's fine, though. We managed."

[coldbrokenlight]

'Caring' is a bit subjecting as it is. Sure, he cares. He cares about whether they're healthy or not, whether they live or die, because war can't be fought with the ill. Because it can't be fought with corpses.

(Reanimated corpses, however, are another story.)

But at some point he can't recall, he began caring for other reasons. He leaves his hand on her forehead for a while longer.

"You should sleep more."

[fallforthesky]

Caring is subjective for any Exorcist, right?

He's just figured out how deep the word can really go.

(Maybe you should let her know in so many words one day. Even if actions...)

"Hah... I sleep enough. More than I did at home." And that's the sad part, isn't it? Her voice begins to waver a bit on the last word, too, because his hand is warm against her forehead and when he lets it linger there, that says it's more than a perfunctory gesture. There's honest concern behind it. Of course there is; it's Kanda, but still...

You know... the only real physical contact she's had with her Kanda since arriving was tackling him to the floor in a stairwell. It was to keep him from doing something stupid. He did it anyway, so she'd screamed at him. ...She hasn't touched him since

[coldbrokenlight]

He has. He just isn't sure he ever wanted to know how deep.

Everything about this place is an irony, perhaps for them especially. To go from being needed to being hated, useful to relatively useless and even dangerous, from generally well-to-do to sleeping on hard spring mattresses, favorite meals to barely enough, and even then--

--Even then this place is kinder to them than the Order ever has been.

Is this what they call blasphemy?

He lets his hand drop slightly, fingertips grazing the edges of her hair and returning to his lap.

"Yours is shorter." Comparatively, to what he last remembers of her. This one or otherwise. "..I haven't had reason to cut it."

There'd be no need to pull it up into a bun if he did, but the change is too drastic. This way, it still feels like the day he crawled out of that pond.

[fallforthesky]

That's what they call life.

She half-laughs and pulls her own hand back, a little sheepishly. "Give it time."

Like she's given Nesreca hers. When she arrived, her hair had only just finally begun to graze her shoulders (she remembers days spent standing in front of the mirror at home, tugging sulkily on the tips as if it would make them grow faster). Now it's making its way down her back and marking the passing of days spent here far more subtly than her wall-etchings ever did. It was a little sickening, when she finally noticed it.

"Don't. Cut it, I mean. It looks nice."

[coldbrokenlight]

Life that he's rarely had a chance to experience. It's nothing short of eye-opening.

"Let's hope you don't have to." Here, that is. Hope they don't have to stay here longer than necessary, whatever that may amount to. He can't tell how long she's been here just by the length of her hair, but regardless, he can tell that it's far too long. That he's gotten her to laugh, though, eases his worries a little bit.

"It's getting harder to wash, though." In regards to the condition of his hands, and nothing to do with thick hair or lack of cleaning products. That's left unsaid. "..But I won't."