[Semi-Closed] Nothing can go Wrong with this Plan.

[wilder]

Date & Time: Friday Evening
Location: Room 103
Characters: Allen Walker (debtor), Sophie (blossomgale), Zelos Wilder (wilder), Cheria Barnes (flashmaiden), Oz Vessalius (velveteened), Arya Stark (wolfchild), Seles Wilder (hiddendepth), Sheena Fujibayashi (holeseeker), Tales of Graces f members, Exorcists and anyone I'm forgetting (seriously I'll add names as we go)
Summary: Holding a dinner so we can all get to know each other, this should end terribly.
Warnings: F for food?!

[This month's haul of transports seemed to bring in a lot of familiar faces for the residents of 103. Friends, family, comrades, terrifying generals who are your boss now- all sorts! ]

[It was Sophie's idea to hold a dinner. A dinner of family, for everyone to have a chance to meet each other and get to know each other better. It seemed like a nice way to welcome everyone into this horrible war. But hey, food! And so, Allen and Sophie made sure to invite their friends, family and comrades in order to have a warm evening together]

[And Kaneis, well, at least he isn't climbing out the back window at the prospect of social interaction for hours. This my friends, is progress. ]

[But gather around friends and family and terrifying boss! There's food, people, wine and games to be had! Just you know, try not to cough in it you sick jerks]

[OOC: KITCHEN | DINING TABLE...FLOOR...COUNTER | LIVING ROOM | BEDROOMS. Please feel free to tag around, thread hop and just have fun! If I left anyone out of the attending list please let me know! ]

Comments

[anklets]

[Those words and the sharpness with which they are delivered are a stab into the most tender parts of her, the parts she hadn't expected to be attacked so, and Lenalee blanches, feeling very small. Hearing Komui berating her, did she think it was fine if she died for the sake of protecting them, of course she didn't think so, of course she didn't think it was okay for her to die, but fighting was all she could do to keep herself from being a burden—

White, Lenalee's eyes return to the kitchen doorway.]

Out. [ barely more than a whisper, as though like the shifting of the scales, she'd lost her volume so that Oz could have it ] Outside, now.

[velveteened]

( the difference is that he does, he really does think it'd be fine for him, except he's been learning to see the ways in which it isn't, but - he's so tired these days, of people dying and causing it and trying and failing, always failing.

but her reaction, like he's said something awful, is what makes him check himself. starts and swallows, shakes his head once without any real emphasis to it - feels like a shake too hard might make him shatter. he's almost never admitted this to anyone before, and it's only now sinking in. )

[anklets]

[ "like" he'd said something awful— she would smack him could she hear such things, but all she does is clench her fists, shaking hands ]

You're not dispens- get out! Not in here, out, outside—

[velveteened]

( going out feels complicit with continuing this conversation, but it's only after a beat that he turns around to mutely leave the kitchen and then the apartment itself, only pausing some short distance outside. the hallway doesn't seem much better than inside, but despite all instincts to bolt he waits for her. )

[anklets]

[She holds her breath as he leave, as much to try and calm herself as in fear that she will hear someone stop him and ask- what that outburst had been about.

Count to five.

(One, t-two, three-)

Follow.

At a tangent, so Allen, Miranda, Klaud don't worry, don't notice her quick departure after Oz. She is having a hard time keeping her thoughts organised.]

You.

[velveteened]

( tenses slightly at the sound of her voice. there's an instinct to raise his voice again, keep going, and another to bolt, but they're equally strong and, oddly, balance into inaction. he doesn't quite look at her, waiting to see what she has to say before deciding for himself. )

[anklets]

[ contrary to what her body language paints, the tone which she uses now is not angry or sharp; just brittle, with a tang of something bittersweet, and consciously low to prevent other others from overhearing what they should not ]

You're deluding yourself if you think you can only fight so recklessly or risk being a burden, with no in-between. Oz, that's... [ eyes hood, duck, a flutter of lashes over a sudden welling ] Something like that will only hurt the ones who love you, even more than making them carry your weight for you or leaving them to fight alone. Even though it sounds right, that fighting alone means no one is with you to get hurt or to- become weighed down, I don't know that it ever is.

[velveteened]

( somehow, it hurts much worse to hear it said like that than when elliot had grabbed him and shouted it in his face, makes him lower his head with some sense of shame.

you can only call the responsibility of protecting your own life heavy because you make other people carry it.

still, that's not precisely it. )

You don't understand.

( says it lowly, not without bleakness. because he only lost control because of break's death, which had only happened because break had been looking for him; because he'd been careless with the contract despite gil's and before that alice's worries; because your sin is your very existence and you don't belong anywhere and that's not something he can ever ever forget because that only makes things worse. )

[anklets]

More than you think I do! [ snapped, again, her frustrations resurfacing in the wake of teenage sullenness ] Maybe not completely, but at least a little!

[velveteened]

No, you don't!

( snapped back, and he looks up at her now. because clearly if she did understand, she wouldn't be making these insistences, never mind that gil, for instance, would say the same. )

What do you know about me?

( or what happens to people around me. there's anger, but it's really fear speaking. ironically, though he doesn't know it, he's taken up the opposite side of an argument he and leo will have a few hours in his future, back in reveil.

but for now, he thinks of collette's question of not long ago, who are you?, and his combination of unwillingness and inability to answer it. )

Or who I am, or what I've done - ?

( or what, he thinks but doesn't say, he's guilty of - something he doesn't even know the full answer to yet. )

[anklets]

[Flinches; it's so rare that anyone would raise their voice back to her in lieu of cowing to her temper (and Komui's besides). It's true that she has not shared much insight into her life before this city, nor he into his, and that, she thinks, has been a mistake.

A necessary precaution. But a mistake.

Her fingers ball into tight fists, but her head lowers.]

You don't get it! I understand because I feel that way, too!

[velveteened]

You're -

( oh. and that stops all of the frustration and self-loathing in its tracks, toppling over itself with a resounding mental crash as he absorbs this bit of information. )

[anklets]

[ keeps on, there's no stopping this party bus now ]

So that's why!

[velveteened]

( well, that shuts him up, leaves him stricken and taken aback at an aspect of lenalee he never would've guessed existed. )

I'm - ( what?? ) - sorry.

( not for his outburst nor what he still thinks, but for not realizing )

[anklets]

[But she isn't in the mood for apologies, Oz, and when he delivers her his, she turns on a sharp heel with a sound of pain disguised by frustration.

Muttered:] It's when you push yourself recklessly, even if it's to protect, that you'll become a burden to your world.

[velveteened]

That's not...

( starts helplessly and then stops, feeling like he owes an explanation. with her not looking, he can be a little more physically expressive: how his face falls, how he raises a hand and then drops it. )

I'd always thought, ( tries again, more quietly, dropping his eyes ) that if I didn't belong anywhere, the least I could do was not burden anyone.

( it'd be better if that thing hadn't been born. )

It's not quite right. ( he really is trying to work on it ) But, you see, it's not the same thing.

( nothing so heroic as presuming he can save people from anything except maybe himself. )

[anklets]

[ feels her heart clench, as though he has reached down her throat and caught it inside his fist ]

And what of your loved ones?

[velveteened]

( better off without me, maybe. he's been swallowing down more words than he's been saying lately, more than usual. )

I want them to be happy.

( sounds exactly like what elliot accused him of being, that sort of self-serving hypocrite )

[anklets]

They shan't be, if you get yourself killed. That reckless behaviour... it's useless.

[velveteened]

( knows that. doesn't know that. feels useless anyway and expendable, in no small part thanks to jack's recent appearance, and that wars with all the lessons he'd thought he was starting to learn.

unsure how to answer, he doesn't at all. )

[anklets]

[Incensed by the look on his face, she lashes out, but with words rather than the fists she is surprised to find herself making.]

If you think people wouldn't miss you, then you're wrong! That they believe you to be replaceable! We're friends, Oz. What do you think that word means to me?

[ knowing full well he can't possibly fathom the depth to it, through her eyes, but too angry to open that vulnerable part up to him just now ]

I'll always help you; I don't want you to fight by yourself.

[velveteened]

( his hands are doing the same, shoulders starting to hunch defensively. but his answer, when spoken, is almost expressionless )

Always?

( it's not confirmation he's looking for - he's not sure what he's looking for, in truth - because the way she says it, he's sure she believes it. but it reminds him of gil and a promise made a decade ago; at the time, the only thing he'd had to say to something like that was i don't believe in 'forever.' things are different now, but it - still seems like sort of a painful avowal to hear. )

[anklets]

So long as I'm here to offer it.

[But that's all she can give, is confirmation; she has never met someone like Oz before, so damaged below the surface. Hardly knows how to bandage herself up to the point of functionality, sometimes.

So she spits out her reassurance as though it cuts her tongue to form the words and twists herself inside again.]

[velveteened]

( pretty words, he thinks with conscious unfairness. it's difficult to doubt her, after everything, which is what makes them so frightening.

but he hears her tone too, senses the ways he's been pushing her even if he doesn't necessarily understand them. )

Sorry. I spoke without thinking.

[anklets]

Stop. You're apologising because I'm angry at you, not because you feel any different about what you did that day.