closed.

[anklets]

Date & Time: October 18th
Location: a virtual simulation room, setting: some 19th century England town
Characters: Allen Walker & Lenalee Lee
Summary: a dramatic turnabout from the norm: sad exorcists. that's really all what needs to be said.
Warnings: sad exorcists?... possible violence

She's been terribly homesick lately, so, tired of bowing beneath that painful missing, home is what Lenalee has asked the AI to give her, and resigned herself to the difficulty that is conversing at length with any artificial intelligence.

Things like "Not quite so rainy, it isn't Exsilium" (it isn't Exsilium), and wistfully murmured specifications: the roads are still cobblestone, they sound so lightly when horses draw their carriages over them. Quiet dark alleys, the ones she learned to be wary of for the Akuma which hide in their shadows (and they do, even now, so isn't she just laughably awful).

It comes close, but never quite dead-on.

Lenalee can't stand to ask it give her the world, after all. So when the people have been conjured and their faces strike her as wholly unfamiliar, she deems it good enough, and quietly taps out an invitation on her tablet which dings in Allen's inbox moments later:


spend some time at home with me? i've done something awfully foolish and if it's quite alright with you, i'd rather not suffer through it on my own.

it's the simulation room furthest from the door.

Comments

[anklets]

[If ever a moment required copious amounts of hand-holding, it's this one.]

I daresay he has. [ a pang, but, ] He'll be fine, Allen.

1/3

[debtor]

[...]

I know he will.

[He's not allowed not to be.]

[debtor]

[And then, with a sudden sardonic edge,]

Of course he went home before I could pay him back for—

[debtor]

[ —CUTTING HIMSELF OFF haha never mind!! ] I just mean, it's rather rude of him, to have gone back without us!

[anklets]

"For"...?

[debtor]

[NOTHING.

Rubbing the back of his head. After a hesitant pause, he sighs.]

Something he did last month. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

[anklets]

[ tongue cllllick ] Last month was not his best.

[debtor]

[He almost leaves it there. It's over with, and wherever and whatever Lavi's doing now, he's likely forgotten all about last month.

But he can't help it. There are things he never got to say, things he may never get to say - he'll never be able to deliver that lecture he had planned out in his head for weeks! He was so worried about that idiot. And his head hurt for days!]

He was so reckless back then, he got himself kidnapped!

[Let's leave out the part where Allen was similarly reckless and would have gotten kidnapped if Lavi hadn't intervened. That's not important.]

[anklets]

[How... in-character for him...

She thumbs over the back of one gloved hand, pushes her reassurance in to Allen through it. The missing she can shoulder, her concern lays in the stress marks she notices coming up on his face like Bak-hives.]

It's been a while yet since any of us weren't. [ but, ] He came home in one piece.

[debtor]

[He glances down at their hands, at least making an effort to release some tension. Exhale.]

I know. I suppose I'll have to forgive him. [ of course he already has. but the corner of his mouth still twitches up, wry. ] He wouldn't let me help him back then. He really was insufferable about it.

[Stupid Lavi...]

[anklets]

[Headtilt, almost feline. She caught sight of something trying to squirm out of sight, but Allen's smiles are so watertight, maybe it has nowhere to go.]

Wouldn't let you help him how...?

[debtor]

[UM.]

I mean-... at the party, he wanted to go after them alone.

[They were both making good decisions that night.]

[anklets]

[Things she doesn't expect for Allen to have simply accepted: that.

Prompting:] And?

[debtor]

[HE'S SAID TOO MUCH. And now he's trying very hard to think of a gentler way to phrase... what happened. He's not particularly proud that he allowed it, and he really didn't set out to vilify Lavi. Even if that really hurt.

But how else is he going to explain it? Of course Allen wouldn't have let Lavi go after them alone (if he were conscious.)]

Well, then he hit me with a pipe...

[anklets]

[anklets]

Did he, now.

[debtor]

So! Is that ice cream parlor around here?

[anklets]

[...Mn.]

This way.

[Follow-the-leader has been resumed. This time with added wrist-pulling.]

[debtor]

[Eheheh...

And he's dragged along! Quietly, this time. Maybe it's better if he doesn't keep running his mouth.]

[anklets]

[If it only were.]

I wish I could have been there to help.

[debtor]

[Ah ha...]

It was really chaotic that night. You can't be everywhere at once, Lenalee. [ he's sure she was busy dealing with shit herself. ]

It turned out all right in the end, [ well, for them, sort of ] so don't worry.

[anklets]

It isn't that I'm worried.

[Worry implies she had to have stopped feeling this way, at some point.]

I just wish we boasted the same advantages here as we did at home. Golems. Units. Someplace as safe as the Order to call our own.

[debtor]

[ stop worrying, lenalee, you're going to go gray ]

I know... We've tablets and mission teams and a base, but it's not the same. We have to make do.

[anklets]

[ did u just ]

We're doing alright, I think. [ let's positivity!] No eyes have been poked out yet.

[debtor]

Let's keep it that way! [ having your eye poked out is not fun, LET HIM tell you.... ]