Paradisa // AU

[exanimatus]

The rooms are dark, the moon is full, and it feels like a night for bad decisions. That might just be because Zelman's figured out that drinking is a pastime that now has favorable results out here. Finally, something the damn Dead Zone does right.

So off he goes looking for trouble to keep his bad mood from spilling out onto the surface (though he can't really remember the last time he was in a good mood save for when she was still around, but that's complexities and stupid anyway). Rin is boring. Legato, however, is interesting, and that's why he seeks him out--eventually finding him hanging around the dimly-lit common room and taking a fairly even seat next to him. Sure, he's a little too close, but that's not his problem.

"I've been thinking."

Comments

[endthem]

It's only human.

He does hate it. So much so that the pressure of it shoves against his chest, pushes his lungs flat, crowds in around his brain until it makes it hard to see straight. He can't stand it, he is imagining twisting Zelman away from him until his limbs are nothing but too many wrong-bent angles. And Zelman wants him angry, and that makes it so much worse.

...It's worse because that's where the self-loathing comes in. He can't avoid it now. It's turning inward because he absolutely cannot argue it. He can't argue against his own humanity, his imperfection, his ugly weakness-- not to someone like him. Not even now. Not with how caught in a corner he let himself get, even after all this time.

And it's in this corner that he's finally forced to realize the answers to Zelman's questions. The remnants of things, the ones he can't pry out of the core of himself no matter how hard he tries. Leftovers of Zelman, still-bleeding things that she left behind, the exhaustion of trying to be his own thing...

The rage and disgust finally makes its mark on his expression, twisting his features as he leans his head away with a sharp motion, finally putting some effort in trying to untangle himself from Zelman and pry him away. A last-ditch effort to get out.

[exanimatus]

There he goes.

Zelman growls, more like a wolf than a person, fangs too close to everything vital for the moment of resistance he gives Legato--but in seeing that his efforts are genuine, he concedes and lets go and gets pushed away. But he's got this triumphant look on his face, like some sort of smile that isn't a smile, but is victory and disgust and glee and misery all pressed into one look.

"I'd just gotten the most horrible idea that maybe you were empty now, you know?" He speaks with such revery, such distant malice. "I'm glad that's not true at all. Because things like us will die without that something, that meaning. That thing that twists everything up like that."

But he kind of wants to leave now. The thrill of it is wearing down, so he moves to get off of the couch entirely.

"And not caring is sharp, I told you. Knives must cut. That keeps it from going dull."

[endthem]

He has room to breath again, and takes immediate advantage of it. Filling his lungs, relaxing into the space that he didn't have a moment before. It's a freeing feeling.

And empty.

...It is so starkly empty that Zelman's words clatter around in the space he left behind until they echo. He's glad that he weathered the encounter, Zelman's attention is wandering like he'd hoped, but he doesn't feel any of the relief that he'd been expecting. ...He finds that he doesn't feel much of anything at all.

Crisis averted, he passed some sort of test, and things can go back to exactly how they were before. It's cold, and passive, and doesn't leave him feeling any better than he did before. He's just left with the hollowness that Zelman dug up and left open. The scales balance again; it adds up to nothing.

It's not enough.

So, he tosses a pebble in.

"...And you're the one telling me this?"

[exanimatus]

That does stop him. That gets him to halt in what must have been the start of an exit--gets him to turn back around. His gut reaction is to be offended that he said something like that. His more logical reaction is to be offended that he said something like that.

So he turns around with the over-dramatic motion of someone not completely in command of their own equilibrium, stopping to lean down to eye-level with Legato.

"What, are you going to call me a hypocrite?" He smirks, simply wicked this time. "Gonna say that you know it better than anyone?"

[endthem]

"I was going to say that history has shown that you are usually the one looking for a reminder."

At least he's able to meet his eyes without hesitation this time. That emptiness is helping.

"Does it make you feel better to try and turn the tables?" --An honest question, despite anything else that might be there.

[exanimatus]

A short, harsh sound. Almost a laugh. Again, he's so close to it... but the point is somewhere else, somewhere far beyond easy explanation.

"Feel better? I have nothing to feel bad about."

Despite his tantrums, his fits, his bouts of anger--he does not regret a single thing he has done. He is not capable of regret. He is only capable of exhaustion, and loathing, and the ever-present, slow, droning waves of boundless apathy.

"Yes, I've been foolish. Yes, I have done things that delay and avoid and squander, but I don't fucking care--" He was happy. That's all that matters. It's all about him. "It was of my own choosing. As if what I ring out of you could make me give a damn about myself--fuck you. As if you're so important."

And then he turns again, ready to leave. "Quit thinking so hard. You should come have a drink or something. Quiets everything down."

[endthem]

It was an honest question because he wanted to hear it explained. He wanted to hear how it was all laid out in Zelman's own words. Both for reasons that are more strategic, and ones that are simply something like indulgent. He likes hearing it. It confirms some things.

And he stands, like he's going to follow him for that drink.

"That's reassuring to hear, honestly. I'd almost begun to believe that you'd actually cared about her."

--Instead of just some inconsequential blip in the scheme of things.

[exanimatus]

He refuses to believe it could be that. It must be inconsequential, especially after going and saying something like that.

And it's still a sore. Just like when someone dredges up his Night family, just like when his power is questioned back home--it's an open wound that will never really heal over. But the dull throbbing becomes just that after a while--dull.

And you can't really feel that pain if you've always been feeling that pain. That's where he's gotten himself too. Being out here, the murders before... It's all to feel numb again. Just like Legato would want.

So he doesn't stop moving. There's the silence enough to know that it means something to him for Legato to have said that, but it's small. When he speaks, it's with confidence. Conviction. Sarcasm.

"Shows what you know."

[endthem]

He follows, but not for the goal of a drink in mind, and not in the way a dog might follow. It's probably something more like a moth-and-flame effect. Zelman had staggered over to dig something up, and he'd succeeded. After so long of nothing, and hoping, Legato can't quite get himself to let it go stagnant again.

"I suppose it does." He should put it down, but he can't. "It makes me feel a little silly, actually. Perhaps if I had gone ahead and fixed the problem sooner, I could have prevented this."

[exanimatus]

If he was in a better state of mind, he might figure that this is what he deserves. It's what he gets for kicking the hornet's nest. But he's just kind of drunk and angry and Legato's complaints are getting obnoxious.

"What, you don't like it?" He takes up something of a casual gait, hands in his pockets and eyes focused distractedly out the windows, towards the moon. He looks at the moon a lot, but whether or not that's notable is up in the air.

"You seemed so happy before."

[endthem]

And that decides it.

Something clicks, and he wanders to a stop. The mock sarcasm drops away, from both his face and his voice. He just lets it go as the pins click and the larger thought that he'd been fidgeting with finally unlocks.

"...Tell me. Do you know why my answer was no?"

[exanimatus]

He stops as well, but mostly because the question intrigues him. He's never bothered to wonder about it before. He's never felt compelled to look for the motivation before--he just figured there was some aspect of him (more than likely lodged in his past) that drives him to make that choice. People are all the same after a while, so guessing and lumping him in to those prior categories is really about the same as knowing, to him.

But now that he brings it up... "You think it matters?"

Which probably should not have been a question, but he adds anyway. "I don't."

[endthem]

"Because it's you."

Which implies that it might be different in some other case. It implies a lot of things.

"You were right, I did have to think about it-- but it was because I didn't have an answer before."

And now he does. He might wish with everything that it would be something different, hang onto some stupid hope and all of the ugly tempting things he can't quite let go of, but he's at least made the conscious decision--

"You turn my stomach."

[exanimatus]

Well, that? He's caught by surprise. For a second it's plain on his face, such a simple idea somehow not what he'd expected. There are reasons behind these things, and him being a reason all in of himself...

But then he laughs again, all fangs and knives and a little slip as he brushes hair away from his forehead again (Rin needs to stop taking his hat away like some bitter babysitter--it gets annoying). He shouldn't be laughing, knowing that he causes someone such disgust. But he wants it. It comes with the general feeling of wanting everyone to hate him.

"That's the best I could have asked for."

After all, being loved is helpful; being hated is far more exciting.

[endthem]

Well, at least being hated is a sure thing in this case, even if everything else seems perpetually and ferociously up in the air.

He manages to smile, finally. It's certainly without humor--still sickened from before--just a shell of an expression to catch the overflow of everything going on in his head.

"Is that what you came looking for?"

Maybe part of it at least, somewhere amongst all of Zelman's wandering motivations. He'd practically said as much earlier, anyway, so it seemed somewhere close to right.