-07- [accidental voice | backdated to Sunday]

[firebornfidelis]

[A clattering sound breaks through the static on the Forge, then a shuffling and the sound of fabric rustling. When Riza speaks, it is with a pronounced edge of fear in her voice.]

Scar! Oh, god. We have to get you some help.

[The sound of cloth being torn

Comments

/slinks in

[clawofsin]

...You shot him?

You better fix that guy up.

[ voice ] lawl Scar doesn't even have an answer

[lonestray]

[There's a really. Really. Long Pause at that. He didn't expect the question, and he...really never thought about why he did it. He tried to reason against it, in all actuality.]

...

To be honest...I don't really know.

[inaction!] silly Scar

[firebornfidelis]

Oh.

[Just that one small sound. She didn't know what kind of answer to expect really. She really can't fathom it. And she wants to yell at him for doing something so stupid as looking for her in the mist, but she can't bring herself to do it. And she wants to apologize again, but she knows how little he cares for that sentiment. So she keeps quiet, looks down at the street and keeps an eye on his steps for any sign of faltering.]

[ action ] ffft, I'm so godawfully slow lately, long tag is long, too.

[lonestray]

[His mouth presses into a thin line at that. When did things become so complicated? He wonders, in some capacity, if the version of him that she knows had difficulties like this, awkward silences, all the apologies and thank-yous. It would be so much easier if she just...ignored him as a different person entirely. That way he could hate her for just being a part of the military...not have to deal with her as a person.

It's the fact that she cares about him so much and wants nothing from him in return that make it impossible to feel the hatred she expects. He stops and regards her over his shoulder, trying to figure out what he ought to say.]

I suppose it had to do with remembering how it felt like to be in the mist alone, the first time something like this happened.

And...[Ffft, awkward, he doesn't like to talk about Spirit, even indirectly.] how it helped, having someone there to tie me down to reality.

[ action ] long tags are love!

[firebornfidelis]

Oh.

[Another small, stupid sound. Like she can't process this information. Why he should care what she went through out here. And if it wasn't already decided in her mind, this would have cemented the fact that he is the same as the man who saved Colonel Mustang in the underground.]

That was... very kind of you.

[She wishes he hadn't. If he had stayed home he wouldn't be injured now, she wouldn't have injured him. She would rather have been left alone with hallucinations of the desert and that shapeshifter than have done him harm, even though the inability to tell the difference between reality and illusion had sunk into her brain like a plague before he showed up to anchor her.]

[ action ] <33

[lonestray]

[He wants to brush her off, tell her 'it's nothing', that he 'would have done it for anyone', except both would have been blatant lies. Especially the latter. He wouldn't have done if for anyone, wouldn't even have done it for most of the people here. There are a special few that are close to him, and Riza has steadily, almost imperceptibly slowly been getting closer to that status.]

...If I hadn't done it, someone else would have.

[Maybe he ought to just take the gratitude for once himself, but Scar has never been good at accepting gratitude and the fact that it's her doesn't make it any easier.]

[ action ]

[firebornfidelis]

[She isn't so sure that's true. Yes, Utena would have come running out to find her if she hadn't expressly forbid it, but she wouldn't have tried to break the hallucination the way Scar had. She would have charged in and just tried to get her inside, but Scar had wanted to ground her, draw her out of the illusion. Or, at least, that was how it seemed to her. And she still wasn't quite sure how to react.]

Still. It was you.

... thank you.

[It sounds ridiculous after what has just happened, but she realizes that she hadn't said it before now even though what he did for her was really above and beyond. Again.]

[ action ]

[lonestray]

[There are a few moments of just silence at that thank you. It's the first time he's said it to her in those words and...he's really not sure what to say. It's not the first time he's been thanked altogether--others in this world have done it as well, but it was a bit...different, with strangers than it was with her.

Finally, his expression softens a little, and as he turns around, he calls behind him]

Come on. Let's go.

[It might seem like a dismissal, but in its own way, it's an acknowledgment.]

[ action ]

[firebornfidelis]

[She understands it. She is used to this type of communication, words that acknowledge without being obvious. And the call to follow, that is more familiar still. She picks up her feet and moves beside him, eyes still on him to make sure he's all right.

She only nods in response to his words and they begin walking again.]

[ voice ] ;___; we can be slow and fail together

[clawofsin]

That's the best idea you've had yet, pal. Now why can't more people think like you do?

[ voice ] /slow!fail party

[lonestray]

[Because most people are held back by their conscience, like he was.]

Didn't you go out too? With Priscilla?

[ voice ] /parties forever! slowly.

[clawofsin]

Yeah, and what a goddamn stupid idea that was. She wanted to get some errands done before it rolled in too thick, y'know?

Dumbass girl.

[ voice ] /the slowest party ever

[lonestray]

[And you went with her. Aww, that's sweet. Not that Scar will say that out loud.]

Did she get them done, at the least?

[ voice ] /parties until dawn, a week later

[clawofsin]

Yeah, she got it. But we didn't get back in time to beat the fog.

[And he stops there, with a silence implying that Scar can fill in the unpleasant gaps for himself.]

[ voice ] /sleeps through that week and parties with...still slowly

[lonestray]

...

[Yeah, he's not that inept that he can't read that silence.]

How bad was it for you two?