[ snapped, so. okay maybe he is still a little shaken. he knows it's a joke about sephiroth being a weird stalker he just has a lot of feelings right now ]
[He gives Cloud a more serious look, but not necessarily a judgemental one.]
Dude. Relax. [He will stop joking shittily though.] We're in your room, and you're with us. It's just us three. You haven't been seeing him here any other time, right?
[He makes a little shooing motion to try to get Lup to slide down away from him, to make room. He slides down in the opposite direction.]
Come sit down. We won't touch you.
[Well, Lup might, but it's fine. She is a lady and can do that.]
[ well now he REALLY feels stupid and insane. it's fine. he looks away and nods at what they said, jaw clenched a little. ]
... I know. I'm fine.
[ admittedly not very believable, but. yeah, he'll walk back over to come sit down with them. gingerly. he's got one knee pulled up, holding it against himself with one arm. he still looks tense? but a larger part of that is embarrassment now. ]
... You can... [ he frowns a bit, trying to figure out the words ] I don't-- I'm fine. You don't have to make a big deal out of it.
[ how do you say "go ahead and obnoxiously touch me because that is the normal version" without actually giving permission to touch ]
Ow. [He takes the punch though because sure, he had no tact, but he doesn't think Cloud wants to be babied.] It's cool if you're not fine. Hell, I'm not fine after that.
[Just saying.
He glances around Cloud at Lup, this time not making any kind of dumbass faces. His brows lower, and he frowns. The look says that Cloud is fucking hanging on by a thread. He's not good at this, so he's letting her do it better.
All he can offer is to very lightly and reassuringly(?) thump Cloud in the upper arm with the backs of his fingers.]
she also glances at jason, but just briefly. cloud comes to sit down, and lup's ear flicks before she settles against his side again. she's not draping over him this time, but she is warm and present. if jason were closer she'd reach for him too, but as it is, she's just looking to not smother.]
Yeah, just seeing what I did was a nightmare. How much shampoo do you think he goes through? [stop don't joke about it]
[ he's not really relaxing at the contact from either of them, but he's also not tensing up more? this is progress?
he's grimacing because he ... does not really want to joke about sephiroth and the layers of trauma involved There! there's nothing that funny about it! but he also does want them to think he's fine (they will not) so they move on. so. so! after a pause, he starts, hesitatingly, painstakingly; ]
... Rumor back when I joined ranks was... One full bottle every wash. Same with the other stuff. The, uh. Conditioner.
[YOU CAN'T SMACK HIM FOR CRACKING JOKES, THEN TURN AROUND AND CRACK BAD JOKES!!! This is a double standard. He lets out an exasperated snort through his nose. NO.]
Don't indulge her. [:|] It's so weird to see this dude acting so unhinged when he was somehow civilized on the island.
[she does look vaguely offended (this joke would have worked on her crew, why not other people!!!) but she stops when she sees cloud grimace, frowning a little. weh. she didn't mean to make it worse!!
so instead she keeps her mouth shut this time, and instead brings a hand up to gently rub cloud's back, like he did for her a few days back.]
[ they are truly babying him and im crying. but he does relax between the no more jokes and the back rubbing. not that it does that much for him personally, but he gets why she's doing it, so the sentiment is what's important. ]
... Trust me, it wasn't any less weird seeing him snap. [ ... ] He spent... days down there, looking over those files, and then...
[ hmmmmm actually let's just not talk about that either. ]
[He reaches up to rub the sockets of his eyes with his thumb and index finger. He's a Bat. Don't just fucking tell him this kind of gossipy information, then rush to move on because you have trauma.
He wants to ask questions!
Very funny that he can't anyway because there's stardust! It'd sure be something if Cloud got more Sephiroth right after experiencing some bad Sephiroth times, but luckily, I am nice enough to hand over the single happy memory I did for Jason.
He already twists like he is going to book it when the dusting happens, but doesn't make it. They get world's sappiest memory, and he falls back onto the bed after like he's been shot, turning his head away to groan.]
when jason knocks himself down to the bed, lup lets out a dorky snortgiggle, utterly delighted.]
That was adorable. [it's a nice easy way to wiggle away from trauma for a bit, until she gets hit with a memory anyway since i don't have any nice ones, haha!] I knew you loved him. And more, even!
[ i cannot believe jason is our only comfort in this thread. jason lets himself fall down and after that the good news is? yknow what? cloud actually is relaxed, looking at jason with open curiosity ]
There's... a lot of you. [ like? goddamn. that's so many adoptions. how are there so many little batlings. but cloud's :o about it means he is at least not making fun of jason for being a softy? look at him ]
[NooooOOOOOOO. Petulantly, he throws his arm over his face so he doesn’t have to LOOK at EITHER of them, and also sotheycantlookathimeither. He can hide his face, but his neck is kinda red so it’s irrelevant.
He’s embarrassed.]
Yeah… [His chest goes puff when he sighs.] Eight. Nine with Al, not counting B. Twelve if you count the dog, the cat, and the cow.
[ okay, now he sounds kind of like he wants to laugh at jason. which is, y'know, a vast improvement from two comments ago, so. but lup follows it up with that and he hesitates ]
...Yeah, maybe with a house that big. I didn't get along with the other kids at home. Can't imagine having to deal with a dozen of them in my mom's house.
[ jason does not have a dozen siblings. but now it's a dozen because it's funnier ]
[Well. It’s in the Batcave sometimes, but he doesn’t wanna say that.] Half dozen. [He is joking because there are more than that.
Slowly, he lifts his arm to his forehead so he can glance at them. IT ISN’T ANY BETTER. He immediately gets embarrassed and glances away.]
Even with a house that big, it isn’t always great. We get on each other’s nerves most of the time. I think right after that, we started arguing over where everyone would sit at the table.
[she looks amused, when he glances over at them and then immediately glances away.]
That's what you do with siblings. [she says, a touch soft.] You knock them out of your seat when they take it, and then later you give them a gift for Candlenights and nearly cry because they get so excited about it.
[her ear flicks, and she reaches up to braid some of her hair, absently.]
[ yeah sorry jason being shy about it makes cloud look amused too now. hilarious.
now, as the singular only child in this room he cannot relate to either story, but he leans a bit back on lup after a moment of hesitation. it is not very hard to guess she misses hers even if he hadnt seen the twins in action in his own game before. but also, comfort is hard. he is Trying ]
Yeah, I'm still not seeing the appeal. [ it's said as a joke, though, and after a beat he also lightly knocks his leg against Jason. wow. touch. ] Not gonna fight about it with both of you, though.
Couldn't be me. I've never shed a single tear. Dick might cry, though. [Dunks on Dick in front of both of you.] He's a crier.
[He is very quick to knock his leg back at Cloud's because this is how they are. It does get him to look up at them again, and it's not so bad when Lup is the one being shy and soft.]
Biggest problem? Working with your family. Sounds like a Hallmark special in theory, but it's terrible in practice. [He uses his elbow, then his hand to push himself upright again.] Kind of miss being an only child sometimes.
[But only sometimes because those days were whew, and he's glad none of those memories reared their ugly head right now.]
[thanks cloud. she eases just a bit, resting her head on his shoulder.
anyway be nice to dick!!! my boy]
No, he's right. [she says about jason's comment to cloud.] Working with your family is nice until they have dirt on you. [or like, if they're in danger? but she doesn't want to break the light tone of the conversation with all that, so she skips past it.]
What's it like being an only child? I knew for about, like, one minute, and that's about it. [this is a joke about how she's the older twin]
[ dick deserves it. anyway he's thinking about it so he doesn't just answer "normal?" but that's how he wants to answer it a little. he shrugs. ]
I don't know. Nothing special. I lived alone with my mom. [ hilarious that jason can relate to this part but lup absolutely cannot. team orphans. ] I guess... She worried about me. [ he guesses. he shakes his head because that is about all he's got here?? everyone he knew died in a fire it's a bummer if he talks about it too long but he is Trying, my dudes. ] I didn't have to fight about chairs or anything like that.
[Or, like, they're in danger, yeah. They're in danger, and you're about to mclose it. He will also just. Skip past that. Siblings! Haha! Yay!
Lup can be with the orphan crowd. Jason's face gets pensively soft, and he sort of looks away with his eyes. He's... trying not to be a little bitter? It's not the same. He's trying not to make comparisons.
He's trying not to ask himself whether or not his mom worried about him. (He knows she did. She had to...?)]
I lived with my mom, too. Before B and the family, I mean. It's so nice not having to share snacks. [Had to share the last piece of stale loaf bread, though. Haha...] Chairs? That's bottom rung stuff. Wait until they're eating your leftovers and not telling you, then you find the fridge empty after you've thought about it all day.
Or you really need to take a shit, but there's only four bathrooms in the entire big ass house, and they're in all of them doing God knows what.
Moms always do. Worry, I mean. Even if they don't show it. [sometimes, you're kind of a mom to your own sibling, so she knows. she laughs a bit at the last part that jason says, though.] You are so disgusting, why. Not wrong! But gross!
[anyway now you guys get a memory of lup's because it's relevant. bam stardust!
you are on the outskirts of the woods, and it's cold.
in front of you, a boy that looks like he isn't much older than thirteen or fourteen sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, intently looking down at a pile of sticks and leaves. he makes a gesture, and his ear flicks in frustration as nothing happens. you laugh a little, and lean forward, grabbing his hands. he's just as cold as you are; you're both shivering, but... you're not alone. that's important.
"You're not doing it right," you tell him, and he gives you the flattest, most unimpressed look, which only makes you giggle more. "Don't look at me like that, butthead, you made the food. Let me try."
and you let go of his hands, sliding around to settle right next to him, and you concentrate. energy crackles along down your arms, through your fingers, and with a burst of heat, a baby flame shoots out of the tips and catches the wood. you startle, and so does he - and then you both laugh, relieved. it'll be easier to get through the night like this.
the boy - your twin, your heart, your soul - reaches into his pack, and pulls out an apple. he's about to take a bite of it, and then he stops. instead, he hands it to you, and you huff, reaching around him for the chef's knife that the two of you managed to scrounge enough funds for. carefully, you cut the apple in two, and you hand him one half. he smiles at you. it's not something he does very often, so it makes you smile back, with a swell of protectiveness. you press your arms together and eat in silence.
later, he insists on putting the beads he stole in your hair, and you only halfheartedly fight him on it. he gets that same intense look on his face as he makes things perfect. it doesn't matter that you'll have to cut the beads out later. this is how he shows he loves you, and you feel it every time you catch yourself in a reflection, the shiny beads glittering in the sun.]
[ cloud barely has time to make a face at jason's implications and knock his leg with his own again before he's hit with lup's memory. it is at least not horrible trauma this time, it's kind of... cute, if he's honest, but he still sighs and rubs at his face at the end of it in exasperation ]
This gonna be happening all night? [ he has already given up on either of them leaving his room for today. it's fine. he's subtly looking at lup to see the scale of how high her missing her brother is now even though he has no idea what to do as a comfort for that. help. jason you have siblings why aren't you in the middle ] At this rate there'll be no point sharing stories, we'll see all of them.
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[ snapped, so. okay maybe he is still a little shaken. he knows it's a joke about sephiroth being a weird stalker he just has a lot of feelings right now ]
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Dude. Relax. [He will stop joking shittily though.] We're in your room, and you're with us. It's just us three. You haven't been seeing him here any other time, right?
[He makes a little shooing motion to try to get Lup to slide down away from him, to make room. He slides down in the opposite direction.]
Come sit down. We won't touch you.
[Well, Lup might, but it's fine. She is a lady and can do that.]
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A little more tact would be nice. [don't just tell the hallucinating dude to relax!!] ... He's right, though, Cloud. He's not here.
[she scoots a little to make room.] We won't touch unless you want us to. [ear flick.]
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... I know. I'm fine.
[ admittedly not very believable, but. yeah, he'll walk back over to come sit down with them. gingerly. he's got one knee pulled up, holding it against himself with one arm. he still looks tense? but a larger part of that is embarrassment now. ]
... You can... [ he frowns a bit, trying to figure out the words ] I don't-- I'm fine. You don't have to make a big deal out of it.
[ how do you say "go ahead and obnoxiously touch me because that is the normal version" without actually giving permission to touch ]
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[Just saying.
He glances around Cloud at Lup, this time not making any kind of dumbass faces. His brows lower, and he frowns. The look says that Cloud is fucking hanging on by a thread. He's not good at this, so he's letting her do it better.
All he can offer is to very lightly and reassuringly(?) thump Cloud in the upper arm with the backs of his fingers.]
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she also glances at jason, but just briefly. cloud comes to sit down, and lup's ear flicks before she settles against his side again. she's not draping over him this time, but she is warm and present. if jason were closer she'd reach for him too, but as it is, she's just looking to not smother.]
Yeah, just seeing what I did was a nightmare. How much shampoo do you think he goes through? [stop don't joke about it]
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he's grimacing because he ... does not really want to joke about sephiroth and the layers of trauma involved There! there's nothing that funny about it! but he also does want them to think he's fine (they will not) so they move on. so. so! after a pause, he starts, hesitatingly, painstakingly; ]
... Rumor back when I joined ranks was... One full bottle every wash. Same with the other stuff. The, uh. Conditioner.
[ half the army's budget went to this. ]
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[YOU CAN'T SMACK HIM FOR CRACKING JOKES, THEN TURN AROUND AND CRACK BAD JOKES!!! This is a double standard. He lets out an exasperated snort through his nose. NO.]
Don't indulge her. [:|] It's so weird to see this dude acting so unhinged when he was somehow civilized on the island.
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[she does look vaguely offended (this joke would have worked on her crew, why not other people!!!) but she stops when she sees cloud grimace, frowning a little. weh. she didn't mean to make it worse!!
so instead she keeps her mouth shut this time, and instead brings a hand up to gently rub cloud's back, like he did for her a few days back.]
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... Trust me, it wasn't any less weird seeing him snap. [ ... ] He spent... days down there, looking over those files, and then...
[ hmmmmm actually let's just not talk about that either. ]
Whatever. He's not here. It doesn't matter.
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He wants to ask questions!
Very funny that he can't anyway because there's stardust! It'd sure be something if Cloud got more Sephiroth right after experiencing some bad Sephiroth times, but luckily, I am nice enough to hand over the single happy memory I did for Jason.
He already twists like he is going to book it when the dusting happens, but doesn't make it. They get world's sappiest memory, and he falls back onto the bed after like he's been shot, turning his head away to groan.]
Can we not open me like a middle school diary?
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when jason knocks himself down to the bed, lup lets out a dorky snortgiggle, utterly delighted.]
That was adorable. [it's a nice easy way to wiggle away from trauma for a bit, until she gets hit with a memory anyway since i don't have any nice ones, haha!] I knew you loved him. And more, even!
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There's... a lot of you. [ like? goddamn. that's so many adoptions. how are there so many little batlings. but cloud's :o about it means he is at least not making fun of jason for being a softy? look at him ]
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[NooooOOOOOOO. Petulantly, he throws his arm over his face so he doesn’t have to LOOK at EITHER of them, and also sotheycantlookathimeither. He can hide his face, but his neck is kinda red so it’s irrelevant.
He’s embarrassed.]
Yeah… [His chest goes puff when he sighs.] Eight. Nine with Al, not counting B. Twelve if you count the dog, the cat, and the cow.
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[those are the rules. a pause.]
Kind of nice to have a big family like that.
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[ okay, now he sounds kind of like he wants to laugh at jason. which is, y'know, a vast improvement from two comments ago, so. but lup follows it up with that and he hesitates ]
...Yeah, maybe with a house that big. I didn't get along with the other kids at home. Can't imagine having to deal with a dozen of them in my mom's house.
[ jason does not have a dozen siblings. but now it's a dozen because it's funnier ]
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[Well. It’s in the Batcave sometimes, but he doesn’t wanna say that.] Half dozen. [He is joking because there are more than that.
Slowly, he lifts his arm to his forehead so he can glance at them. IT ISN’T ANY BETTER. He immediately gets embarrassed and glances away.]
Even with a house that big, it isn’t always great. We get on each other’s nerves most of the time. I think right after that, we started arguing over where everyone would sit at the table.
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That's what you do with siblings. [she says, a touch soft.] You knock them out of your seat when they take it, and then later you give them a gift for Candlenights and nearly cry because they get so excited about it.
[her ear flicks, and she reaches up to braid some of her hair, absently.]
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now, as the singular only child in this room he cannot relate to either story, but he leans a bit back on lup after a moment of hesitation. it is not very hard to guess she misses hers even if he hadnt seen the twins in action in his own game before. but also, comfort is hard. he is Trying ]
Yeah, I'm still not seeing the appeal. [ it's said as a joke, though, and after a beat he also lightly knocks his leg against Jason. wow. touch. ] Not gonna fight about it with both of you, though.
[ calling out Jason for loving his siblings ]
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[He is very quick to knock his leg back at Cloud's because this is how they are. It does get him to look up at them again, and it's not so bad when Lup is the one being shy and soft.]
Biggest problem? Working with your family. Sounds like a Hallmark special in theory, but it's terrible in practice. [He uses his elbow, then his hand to push himself upright again.] Kind of miss being an only child sometimes.
[But only sometimes because those days were whew, and he's glad none of those memories reared their ugly head right now.]
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anyway be nice to dick!!! my boy]
No, he's right. [she says about jason's comment to cloud.] Working with your family is nice until they have dirt on you. [or like, if they're in danger? but she doesn't want to break the light tone of the conversation with all that, so she skips past it.]
What's it like being an only child? I knew for about, like, one minute, and that's about it. [this is a joke about how she's the older twin]
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[ dick deserves it. anyway he's thinking about it so he doesn't just answer "normal?" but that's how he wants to answer it a little. he shrugs. ]
I don't know. Nothing special. I lived alone with my mom. [ hilarious that jason can relate to this part but lup absolutely cannot. team orphans. ] I guess... She worried about me. [ he guesses. he shakes his head because that is about all he's got here?? everyone he knew died in a fire it's a bummer if he talks about it too long but he is Trying, my dudes. ] I didn't have to fight about chairs or anything like that.
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Lup can be with the orphan crowd. Jason's face gets pensively soft, and he sort of looks away with his eyes. He's... trying not to be a little bitter? It's not the same. He's trying not to make comparisons.
He's trying not to ask himself whether or not his mom worried about him. (He knows she did. She had to...?)]
I lived with my mom, too. Before B and the family, I mean. It's so nice not having to share snacks. [Had to share the last piece of stale loaf bread, though. Haha...] Chairs? That's bottom rung stuff. Wait until they're eating your leftovers and not telling you, then you find the fridge empty after you've thought about it all day.
Or you really need to take a shit, but there's only four bathrooms in the entire big ass house, and they're in all of them doing God knows what.
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[anyway now you guys get a memory of lup's because it's relevant. bam stardust!
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This gonna be happening all night? [ he has already given up on either of them leaving his room for today. it's fine. he's subtly looking at lup to see the scale of how high her missing her brother is now even though he has no idea what to do as a comfort for that. help. jason you have siblings why aren't you in the middle ] At this rate there'll be no point sharing stories, we'll see all of them.
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