aldersprig | Walls, a response storylet

Started in inventrix's DW here (and the comments)

Then here.

Now, below.

Cya left Leo's house slowly. She walked out of the yard as if she was still, somehow, thinking he'd say "no, wait, come back." She walked down the road, ignoring people, ignoring animals, ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that was always suggesting improvements to the city.

He sticks around because he's crazy. THAT voice had always been there, even when it was pretty obvious Leo wasn't so much sticking around as being tethered by ill-thought-out promises and Cya's habit of Finding him whenever he got too far off. He sticks around because he's tethered.

If his insanity was changing, evolving, would there still be room for the Protagonist's Friends?

She walked to the wall around her city and climbed the ladder. It was her city; nobody was going to tell her not to be there.

"You built a real city," he'd said. She chewed it over. Yes, yes she had. It wasn't New York City or even Chicago or Milwaukee, but it was a city. She'd set out to make one, and she had.

"We aren't teenagers anymore." It was hard to argue with that, either. After all, they had grand-children who were past the teenaged years.

That was where something had gone wrong. Then he'd asked if something was wrong with him. Then he'd asked if he was insane.

She stared out at the mountains beyond her city, and the road snaking its way past Cloverleaf. She looked inwards, at the growing city she'd wrought. It would hold, she thought, even if she didn't. It could grow now, with or without her.

Leo... Leo wasn't exactly predictable, but he, Howard, Zita, even Gaheris, Mags, they'd always had a set of behaviours they could be trusted to act within. Cya too, of course; Cya was The Calm One.

Which explained entirely why she was crying. She bit her lip and raised her chin. Nobody would ask why the mayor of the city was sobbing on the walls, but it wasn't particularly great for morale, either. The Mayor made things go, just like Cya always had. She didn't bawl her eyes out.

She certainly didn't bawl her eyes out over her friend the insane samurai. And absolutely not because he might not be insane anymore.

The drop from the walls was a long one, too long to make safely, but making the earth soft and bouncy was an old trick by now. Cya slid down to the ground and let the soft space between inner and outer walls cradle her. Nobody would see her breaking script here. Nobody would be worried by her crying.

Leo... Leo was changing.

"How bad..." It had been bad, sometimes. It had been awful sometimes. But selfishly, Cya had not minded as much as she should, because it let her be useful. It let her be needed.

"It's nice." And she'd done what she always did and given him what he might possibly at some point need. She'd built him a house with her own hands and Workings. She'd stocked it with food in case he visited. She'd done a bigger version of packing him a go-bag. And, sane, or becoming sane, or differently insane, whatever was going on with him -- whatever she'd triggered in him -- Leo had cared about as much as her angrier Kept had cared about their go-bags.

She stared blankly at the walls of her city. What in hell was she supposed to do next?

Crossposts: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/1097924.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

inventrix

<3

The question is, what will you do, Cya?

From:

inventrix

Also poor Cya she thinks Leo doesn't caaaaaare <3

(he cares too much)

Edited Date: 2015-08-24 08:42 pm (UTC)

From:

aldersprig

She's always afraid he doesn't really careee.

From:

inventrix

Cyaaaaaaa.

Edited Date: 2015-08-24 08:55 pm (UTC)

From:

aldersprig

I'm not 100% sure.

Leave him alone for a bit, probably. Pay the grocer and the milkman in advance if he wants food for like the first month. Try to get on with making her city go and pretend things are fine.

From:

inventrix

Ah yes good old "if I ignore the problem maybe it'll go away" technique.

From:

aldersprig

*laugh*
A little bit of that, a little bit of "he clearly wants to be left alone."

I mean, if he doesn't seek her out in a week, she'll probably seek him out with take-out. Because she has take-out again.

From:

inventrix

I was thinking mostly of the "pretend things are fine" ;)

Yay, take-out!

From:

inventrix

About a week after showing Leo to his house, Cya left her house in the morning as she normally would and opened the door to someone sitting on her doorstep. (Or next to the door, if there are no steps.)

The person, of course, was Leo; he hadn't been there the night before, but he still looked like he'd been waiting there for a long while. He glanced up as soon as the door opened and, seeing it was her, gave her a faint smile. Compared to his normal smiles - both the good ones and the bad ones - it was a pathetic ghostly excuse of an expression. Besides that, he looked like crap - like he'd hardly slept in days, his light skin turned pale with dark circles under his eyes. One of his hands was tucked oddly into the sleeve of his kimono, as if hiding it.

He wasn't wearing his sword.

"Hey." It was an incredibly lame and unenthusiastic-sounding greeting - which he seemed to notice, the smile disappearing into a look of apology.

From:

aldersprig

(there are steps, and a little porch)

Cya looked him over. She had long experience with the varieties of Leo-looking-sad/messed up. "Come in." It wasn't so much an invitation as it was an order. "You haven't eaten?"

Some tiny part of her felt guilty, because Leo looking like this was something she understood, something she could deal with. Some part of her was trying not to dance around because he had come to visit. She hadn't had to track him down this time.

And part of her was cataloging the mess, even as she stepped back to let him into her house.

From:

inventrix

"...Not today, no." He stood, slowly, and stepped in through the door. Food hadn't been one of the things he'd been skipping; not really. He wasn't very hungry, most of the time, but he'd been making himself eat anyway.

At that moment, he was mostly relieved that Cya was acting like Cya. Not just because it meant things weren't going completely to shit, but also because it verified that at least some of his impressions were accurate. One thing at a time.

"I was..." His voice sounded rough, from stress (and to be completely honest, crying, but he wasn't going to admit that to anyone who wasn't Zita), and he cleared his throat. "Hoping you had time to talk."

Once inside, he didn't seem to be trying to hide his hand any more. It was wrapped in some bandages and he held it carefully, not using it.

From:

aldersprig

"Always, for you." She started a pot of porridge, easy stuff, gentle stuff, all while keeping most of her attention on Leo. "And today - today I have plenty of time. I can talk as much as you want."

Sh poured two cups of cool water and set one in front of him. "Where do you want to start?"

From:

inventrix

Leo sat down in the same place he had the last time he'd been there, after only a moment's hesitation as he tried to figure out where he was supposed to sit.

"Thanks."

He sat there, thinking about "today", about the implication that on other days she might not have the time for it. It made sense, of course; she ran an entire city. It was amazing enough that she had any time for him today. Tomorrow and the days after could take care of themselves, when they came.

Carefully, thinking about his answer, he picked up the cup of water with his left hand and took a small sip. Where do you want to start. With a question like that, she must have some expectation of what he was there to talk about. What if it wasn't the same thing? Would she still want to talk? He looked down into the cup at the water for a moment, then took another sip.

"We could start," he said slowly, placing the cup back down, "by cross-checking all my memories against yours. But that would take years." It was decades worth of memories, after all. "I'll have to live with it. So instead..." He paused and gritted his teeth, forcing himself to finish what he'd started. "I don't think I can do this, Cya. I don't even know where to start."

There. He'd admitted it. Everything was fucked up and he needed help.

Edited Date: 2015-08-25 03:46 am (UTC)

From:

aldersprig

He looked so lost. Cya settled into the armchair and watched Leo.

He looked more than lost. He looked adrift. She found it a bit terrifying, and, at the same time, a bit reassuring. He hadn't reverted to his scripts yet. He hadn't made up a new story to fill in the holes.

"I don't think I can do this," he admitted, and Cya struggled to keep her expression calm. "I don't even know where to start."

Oh. Oh, not knowing how... that was different. She smiled gently at him and leaned forward over her coffee table. That hand... he'd need to heal it soon, why hadn't he? It could wait a little longer.

"Okay," she answered, not too gently, just as much... as much like herself as she could. "I'm not certain either," she admitted, "but we can Find an answer. We can do this. So...what, specifically, is 'this'?" She smirked at him, just enough to look like herself. "I can help you, but I want to be sure we're working on the same thing."

From:

inventrix

He glanced up at her for a split second when she started to reply, despite himself, and was reassured. She wasn't upset, she wasn't angry; she looked like she'd done this sort of thing before. (Maybe she had. The thought was less than comforting.)

It took him a little while to answer her second question, too - at least as long as it had taken to answer the first, if not longer.

How was he supposed to put it into words? Almost more importantly, how was he supposed to put it in the right words...? He couldn't sleep; she knew that, and they both knew that wasn't what he meant. He couldn't... he couldn't deal with it. With what? With everything. But he couldn't just say 'everything', she'd want to know what that meant. So what could he give her that she would understand?

"Dealing with... life." It wasn't a good enough answer. He slowly rotated the cup on the table with his good hand. "With..." He didn't have a better word or even phrase than 'everything'. "With having been crazy," he finally tacked on, feeling like his answer was utterly inadequate.

From:

aldersprig

Cya was willing to wait for Leo's answers, as long as he stayed here, stayed present. She kept watching for the signs that he'd slid back into insanity, found a script and gone into a new world.

"...having been crazy," he said, and she studied him more intently, not bothering to hide it. Was he actually sane now? Would she even know what that would look like?

"Well," she answered slowly, "I don't think I need to tell you that it won't be easy. But I think we can work through it." She smiled gently at him. "We made it this far with you crazy. We can make it through you being sane."

If he was. If he really was. "Leo... would you mind if I did an Idu Working on your mind?"

From:

inventrix

He felt like he should have expected her to ask that. Should have. Instead, he was taken completely by surprise. (She'd done that before, hadn't she. Hadn't she?)

To be honest... this time, he did mind. (Did he normally?) It was one thing to come here, sit down and talk to Cya about being completely screwed up; it was something entirely different to let her actually see it. Letting her see everything he'd been thinking - some of which he'd rather she never found out about at all.

And she was watching him carefully - was she worried again? Looking into his mind wasn't going to help that at all. Telling her no might worry her, too, but it couldn't possibly be as much...

On the other hand, he felt like he owed her, for the house, for taking this time to talk to him. But he really didn't want to let her...

He looked away from her again, back down into the water, and stalled answering. "I guess that depends on why?"

From:

aldersprig

"I don't want to read your thoughts," Cya answered carefully. She'd caught the surprise and was, in turn had been expecting something of the sort. For one, she didn't usually ask; she just maintained plausible deniability.

For another thing, she had no way of knowing if he'd remembered those previous times or how he'd remembered them.

Why. Why was a good question. Cya considered her answer.

"I don't want to read your thoughts." That might be the most important part. "I just want to run, err, a diagnostic? If you don't want me to, that's fine."

From:

inventrix

A diagnostic? He looked back up at her questioningly - but the answer came to him before he could ask the question.

She thought he was still crazy.

He put a hand over his mouth as the corner twitched upwards - he was not going to laugh. If he started to laugh, he was going to end up crying again and he was not going to cry, not here in front of Cya.

"I guess--" His voice cracked, dammit. He cleared his throat. "That's okay."

It wasn't like he knew if he was sane or not. The most he could say was he was probably less crazy than he used to be. (Did he want to know? Cya did, but did he?)

From:

aldersprig

Cya watched his responses, growing ever more concerned as he covered his mouth. That was -- she really had to stop expecting things. This was the new, improved (now with shinier packaging! some section of her mind offered, and another section clinically pointed out that so far, the packaging was pretty grubby and broken in this iteration), different Leo.

It might be enough to send her into quiet hysterics, except that Leo needed her.

"Thank you." She murmured the Working, loud enough that he could hear the Words and words she used. It was a very tightly-constrained Working, just enough to tell her if he was still insane.

She sat back and stared at the wall over his head for a moment when the Working was finished.

"Well." Leo had his share of issues, mental and emotional, but she refused to pry into those at the moment. But by every and any definition she knew, he was sane. "Well." She'd already said that. "Okay. So..."

She twitched her shoulders and tried not to laugh. It was not going to sound healthy if she did.

"...living without a script, then?" she tried weakly.

From:

inventrix

Leo watched Cya as she did her Working. He watched her struggle for words afterwards.

He realized she didn't know what to do, either.

It wasn't like Cya to... but he didn't really know, did he? Maybe Cya didn't always know what to do and he'd just believed she did. (This was the worst.) On the other hand, it was almost comforting that he wasn't the only one without any good ideas.

(He noticed she didn't say what she'd learned from the Working; he didn't ask.)

"That sounds like a good place to start." A script; that wasn't a bad way to describe it. "But..."

He looked down again, then back at her. "You know I'm not expecting you to fix anything for me, right? I just..." He shook his head. "I just need someone to talk to about it." (And Zita wasn't there.)

From:

aldersprig

She felt like she was letting Leo down. She chewed on her lip for a moment. "I know. I... I'm not sure I could fix it anyway, so that's probably for the best." She sipped her water again. "I can listen, if that's what you want. I'm pretty good at that."

She sounded needy. She didn't want to sound needy. But, well, she'd already said it. She smiled again, her calm-adult smile. That one got a lot of use, usually dealing with scared, angry Kept. "So...?" She thought about asking how does it feel, but it sounded inane. She thought about asking what happened, but it sounded nosy. She left it hanging out there, and hoped it was enough.

From:

inventrix

He thought he should probably smile back. Normally, he wouldn't even think about it. Right now, though... he wasn't sure a smile he could make himself give would be any better than not trying at all. (He'd tried smiling at himself in the mirror the day before. It'd been nothing less than pathetic.)

"So."

He didn't have any more excuses to put this off. It was what he'd come there to do; he shouldn't be making excuses anyway. So, staring down at his hands (he should fix his hand, but it could wait), he just started talking.

"It's not just not... having a script, like you said." The corner of his mouth twitched in an unconscious impulse to a smile. "Like that's not bad enough, every time you do anything, go anywhere, feeling like you should know exactly what to do. Like I used to know, but don't any more.

"Even though I know it was all..." Leo paused, still looking at his hands, making an effort to hold them still. "Made up. Do you know-- no, of course you don't." He shook his head sharply. "I remember years - decades - of a life that as far as I know never happened. Like... like most of my memories got replaced by an anime show." He laughed, weakly. "Which I guess is pretty accurate, from what you said.

"And all that sucks, and it took, I dunno, a while just to get my head around it, you know? The idea that nothing - almost nothing I remember is real, or might not be. But it's not..." It's not the worst part. His throat tightened and he couldn't keep going. Not yet.

The worst part. He clenched his hands, despite himself, and just-barely winced at the pain from his injury. He'd have to fix it. Eventually.