[a smaller idiot shows up (late, again, maybe it's something in his blood), although this one is wearing a brown coat, oversized and incredibly grubby]
[he had been -- not excited, nothing so kiddish as that, surely -- interested! interested, to see what Sakamoto had for him, on a day that coincidentally happened to be his fourteenth birthday, even if it wasn't really a birthday, even if it wasn't really a year worth celebrating]
[but now, his face doesn't speak of that enthusiasm; when Badou plunks down beside Sakamoto, his face looks brittle, his eye too dry, and his mouth too thin]
[and he smells, overfuckingwhelmingly, of cigarettes]
[ he hears Badou before he sees him, but surprisingly, he smells him before he ever gets close enough to see, too. he knew the boy wasn't a smoker, knows that nobody in that household was save for Toushirou. this, though, isn't anything near what the Shinsengumi vice-chief smoked.
he smiles to the sky when the kid sits down, though, watching him sidelong and so carefully neutral. takes note of what he can see of the boy's face, his expression, the set of bony shoulders.
the coat.
ah. ]
Would you like it now, or do want to enjoy the scenery a little more?
[he's not good at answering questions on, really, his best days; living in an infohound's den was bound to fuck with your sense of other people's curiosity (if words are weapons, how can they ever leave your mouth painlessly?)]
[so the response is a shrug, and an empty ache where he should feel something]
[his goal, his hate, that ten fucking K to that fucking asshole, he can't even focus on those tried and true distractions; it's nothing but static and echoes]
[ like he'd ever forget the weight, no matter how small the object. but it's with a small laugh, a chuckle, that he brings the box forward, simple cardboard kept closed with tape around an embarrassing wad of crumpled newspaper, a poor man's wrap-job.
better action than words, in this situation. the stench of old cigarette smoke is almost overwhelming, less for the acrid aroma than the faded sense to it.
[he doesn't tear at it like an adult, or a kid, really; neither calmly paced nor frenzied and overexcited; he rips at the newspaper like a person might rip off an old bandage destined for the trash, thinking on the wound instead of the wrappings]
[his eye, slack and glossy, goes a bit sharper when he pulls the box open, and his voice sounds strained, like he's been screaming (like has hasn't stopped screaming since -- )]
It's a Derringer, twenty-two caliber. Rosewood grips. It's small, but it's still powerful.
[ fondly, as if talking about a prized possession, a pet, a friend. he takes a smaller box from his coat, gives it a little shake. it rattles thickly. ]
Now, before I let you walk off with that, I need a number of promises from you.
This isn't a toy, an accessory, or something to play around with. You will not keep it loaded when it's not in use. You'll carry it on your person only, and only when you feel the absolute need to have it with you.
[ his pitch is still mild, his voice merry, but there's steel underlying all that now. this is Serious Business. ]
Use it only in the event of great danger to yourself, your housemates, or your friends. If I hear anything at all about you waving it around otherwise, firing it for no arguable reason, threatening one of the other kids your age with it, or otherwise showing off--
[his breath gets shallower as Sakamoto lists the promises that need to be made; something, he can feel something in his gut, finally -- and the demands sound muted in his head, although he hears every word]
[when the merchant finishes, asks for his word, Badou manages to identify the feeling in his gut]
[it is unfairness]
[and that half-hoarse voice gets rougher]
If ya think I'd do any'a that fucking scumbag shit, you're a bigger idiot than you look like, an' you look like a huge f-fuckin' idiot --
[the words are too forceful, his lungs feel punched of air, and his teeth shred his lip as they have once before]
Fuck you. M'not a fucking...
[whatever he isn't, he can't say, because the sparse air he has runs out. he shoves the gun back into the box, drawing his knees to his chest, that shitty brown coat enveloping thin, suddenly shaking limbs]
I guess I'm just that crazy, ahh? Old men like a little reassurance before they hand off something important.
[ he says to the sky, the clouds, still smiling like a dream. beside him, a small world shakes itself into a froth, a world that smells like cigarettes and iron and blood and a life so very far removed from his own.
something curious and small quivers in his chest, something he doesn't think he's felt in a long while. ]
[Badou is aching, Badou is tired, and he is so worriedlonelylost without his brother he can't even get pissed about it, not with this smell he'd already forgotten fogging his head up, making him dumb and raw]
[there's a sickness chewing at his temples and at his heart; he'll need a bigger gun than a Derringer to lay it to rest, but it's a start, it's a start towards trying to feel safe again (not protected; he was never protected)]
[there's a lot of reasons why he doesn't lean so much as cave beneath that arm, that mostly have to do with Dave]
[but some of them have to do with Sakamoto, too]
[his eye is dry; his body is crying for him, in feverish sweats and nerve twitches; with no rain, the storms underground are all electrical]
[ he feels the sun on his face, its warmth, and it makes him smile. he feels the breaking of something under his arm, at his side, and something just as small, odd and lumpy and foreign, catches somewhere in the general vicinity of his throat.
tipping his head down, he loops his arm around sharp, shaking shoulders with a certain sort of care, like he's loathe to disrupt the storm raging under sickness-pale skin. but the embrace is there, however light, that unspoken assurance hanging heavy between them, in the minute space left over.
i'm here, the arm around thin shoulder says. it'll be fine. ]
[it doesn't feel like his brother's arm; it lingers too long, it's too gentle, it's too strong, not Nails-sharp, brother-rough and jostling. he doesn't want to push it off, to stop the impending too-hard hair scruff, to bitch aw knock it off a'ready! because he was just doing it to embarrass him anyway, the stupid grinning idiot]
[he blurts, messy and catching, fish-hooked breaths]
I don't -- I don't know --
[where he is, if he's okay, why this shitty coat was sent, what to do, where to go from here, how to walk with a chest all full of hate and hollows alternating]
[he finishes all wrong, petulantly and disjointed]
[ despite himself, despite everything he knows about feral dogs and ticking time bombs, he edges a little closer, holds his arm around badou a little more firmly. smiles to the sky like he dares it to fall, to drop more of life's weight on bird's bones and a back too small and young to take the burden. ]
I hear you.
[ he fought the soldiers, the ranks and lines that fell from the stars once before, fought it all for an ideal and a dream, for country and comrade.
he wonders if he can do it again, stand up against fate herself, the fickle cruel wench, for a bright and angular bag of bones and thorns and roiling adolescent anguish. ]
[the harsh flinch at the increased touch is probably expected, but that he jitters himself beneath it until he's settled again, like a child rocking themselves back to sleep from a nightmare, probably isn't. he's starved for it, for contact that doesn't hurt but still stings, for affection that's sought after, not freely offered; Sakamoto is keeping that bag of bones from clattering right apart]
[what should have sounded like platitudes hits hard; back home, their problems didn't get fixed (rarely even got understood), but they were always listened to, if someone chose to speak (and they did)]
[I fuckin' hate school, Badou would yell and mean a hundred other things, about isolation and fear and anger]
[Ah, cigarettes are gettin' too expensive, Dave would mutter and mean a hundred more, about desperation and practicality and truth]
[listening mattered then and it matters now, with a man who isn't his brother, but is someone Badou -- falteringly, with such stupid blindness -- trusts]
[those knocking bones slowly settle more, but his shallow, ragged breathing does not, and he fumbles a hand down, pulling out a pack of cigarettes (Hijikata's) and a lighter (his own) from that stupid coat]
[Sakamoto had assumed he doesn't smoke; he doesn't. he just wants to pull heat back into himself, put something in his lungs that isn't loss (which coincides with the oxygen he keeps choking on)]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: text; on the morning of the 3rd...
im terrible w/ sharp things anyway so no
no cutting or sharp things
Re: text; on the morning of the 3rd...
fine
Re: text; on the morning of the 3rd...
ill see u whenever just txt me when ur free
Re: text; on the morning of the 3rd...
action mofo
an idiot in a red coat watches the distant horizon ]
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[he had been -- not excited, nothing so kiddish as that, surely -- interested! interested, to see what Sakamoto had for him, on a day that coincidentally happened to be his fourteenth birthday, even if it wasn't really a birthday, even if it wasn't really a year worth celebrating]
[but now, his face doesn't speak of that enthusiasm; when Badou plunks down beside Sakamoto, his face looks brittle, his eye too dry, and his mouth too thin]
[and he smells, overfuckingwhelmingly, of cigarettes]
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he smiles to the sky when the kid sits down, though, watching him sidelong and so carefully neutral. takes note of what he can see of the boy's face, his expression, the set of bony shoulders.
the coat.
ah. ]
Would you like it now, or do want to enjoy the scenery a little more?
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[so the response is a shrug, and an empty ache where he should feel something]
[his goal, his hate, that ten fucking K to that fucking asshole, he can't even focus on those tried and true distractions; it's nothing but static and echoes]
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[ like he'd ever forget the weight, no matter how small the object. but it's with a small laugh, a chuckle, that he brings the box forward, simple cardboard kept closed with tape around an embarrassing wad of crumpled newspaper, a poor man's wrap-job.
better action than words, in this situation. the stench of old cigarette smoke is almost overwhelming, less for the acrid aroma than the faded sense to it.
it smelled like things gone. ]
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[his eye, slack and glossy, goes a bit sharper when he pulls the box open, and his voice sounds strained, like he's been screaming (like has hasn't stopped screaming since -- )]
Seriously?
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Very serious. Go on, you can handle it; it's not about to fall apart.
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[he picks it up as bidden, turns it over]
...S'kiddie sized.
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[ fondly, as if talking about a prized possession, a pet, a friend. he takes a smaller box from his coat, gives it a little shake. it rattles thickly. ]
Now, before I let you walk off with that, I need a number of promises from you.
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[but now, with Sakamoto, today, he doesn't, just turns that sea-glass sharp eye on first the rattling box, and then the older man again]
[he grunts an assent, hands both tightening on the gun]
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[ his pitch is still mild, his voice merry, but there's steel underlying all that now. this is Serious Business. ]
Use it only in the event of great danger to yourself, your housemates, or your friends. If I hear anything at all about you waving it around otherwise, firing it for no arguable reason, threatening one of the other kids your age with it, or otherwise showing off--
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Then we'll have to have a talk. Do you understand? Do I have your word on the matter?
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[when the merchant finishes, asks for his word, Badou manages to identify the feeling in his gut]
[it is unfairness]
[and that half-hoarse voice gets rougher]
If ya think I'd do any'a that fucking scumbag shit, you're a bigger idiot than you look like, an' you look like a huge f-fuckin' idiot --
[the words are too forceful, his lungs feel punched of air, and his teeth shred his lip as they have once before]
Fuck you. M'not a fucking...
[whatever he isn't, he can't say, because the sparse air he has runs out. he shoves the gun back into the box, drawing his knees to his chest, that shitty brown coat enveloping thin, suddenly shaking limbs]
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[ he says to the sky, the clouds, still smiling like a dream. beside him, a small world shakes itself into a froth, a world that smells like cigarettes and iron and blood and a life so very far removed from his own.
something curious and small quivers in his chest, something he doesn't think he's felt in a long while. ]
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and he holds out a hand, like an invite.
it's okay ]
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[there's a sickness chewing at his temples and at his heart; he'll need a bigger gun than a Derringer to lay it to rest, but it's a start, it's a start towards trying to feel safe again (not protected; he was never protected)]
[there's a lot of reasons why he doesn't lean so much as cave beneath that arm, that mostly have to do with Dave]
[but some of them have to do with Sakamoto, too]
[his eye is dry; his body is crying for him, in feverish sweats and nerve twitches; with no rain, the storms underground are all electrical]
Re: action mofo
tipping his head down, he loops his arm around sharp, shaking shoulders with a certain sort of care, like he's loathe to disrupt the storm raging under sickness-pale skin. but the embrace is there, however light, that unspoken assurance hanging heavy between them, in the minute space left over.
i'm here, the arm around thin shoulder says. it'll be fine. ]
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[he blurts, messy and catching, fish-hooked breaths]
I don't -- I don't know --
[where he is, if he's okay, why this shitty coat was sent, what to do, where to go from here, how to walk with a chest all full of hate and hollows alternating]
[he finishes all wrong, petulantly and disjointed]
-- it wasn't even August, it w-was fuckin' March.
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[and he chokes off again; the only thing he had was reality to hold onto, Dave got all the dreams and ideals]
[curling up tighter, he hunches against Sakamoto's weight like a rock to hide behind (he can't deal with erosion, not like this)]
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[ despite himself, despite everything he knows about feral dogs and ticking time bombs, he edges a little closer, holds his arm around badou a little more firmly. smiles to the sky like he dares it to fall, to drop more of life's weight on bird's bones and a back too small and young to take the burden. ]
I hear you.
[ he fought the soldiers, the ranks and lines that fell from the stars once before, fought it all for an ideal and a dream, for country and comrade.
he wonders if he can do it again, stand up against fate herself, the fickle cruel wench, for a bright and angular bag of bones and thorns and roiling adolescent anguish. ]
Re: action mofo
[what should have sounded like platitudes hits hard; back home, their problems didn't get fixed (rarely even got understood), but they were always listened to, if someone chose to speak (and they did)]
[I fuckin' hate school, Badou would yell and mean a hundred other things, about isolation and fear and anger]
[Ah, cigarettes are gettin' too expensive, Dave would mutter and mean a hundred more, about desperation and practicality and truth]
[listening mattered then and it matters now, with a man who isn't his brother, but is someone Badou -- falteringly, with such stupid blindness -- trusts]
[those knocking bones slowly settle more, but his shallow, ragged breathing does not, and he fumbles a hand down, pulling out a pack of cigarettes (Hijikata's) and a lighter (his own) from that stupid coat]
[Sakamoto had assumed he doesn't smoke; he doesn't. he just wants to pull heat back into himself, put something in his lungs that isn't loss (which coincides with the oxygen he keeps choking on)]
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