savetheearth | (no subject)

Who: Alexander, Anthony, Bakura, Banagher, Hajime, John, Lyall, Ravindra, Reilanin & Vanessa
Where: Alex & Ravi's apartment
When: Friday, Sept. 13th (ooooh)
What: Movie night!
Warnings: --

[ and so it happened that tonight was a movie night slightly different from the one alex, anthony, john (and ravindra, when he wanted to be included) had grown accustomed to -- namely, the volume of bodies had doubled, plus two. the cats were split in opinion; adhirat sought shelter in ravi's room, while olivia got cozy with anyone who'd give her the time of day and gomez poked around and occasionally darted off.

the more the merrier -- for anthony's sake, partially, as holing up in an apartment couldn't have been very fun (thought alex) while his peers enjoyed (or enjoyed to hate) school. bakura was a friend of his, so alex was more than happy to have him over. lyall could always use a break. hajime had been an invaluable asset at the water bust and seemed like a swell guy. john was an 'of course'; a founding member of movie night and someone alex got along with splendidly. vanessa, well.

vanessa could do with the company of good people. she seemed to get along with banagher fine, too, and alex was fond of both of them.

as for reilanin, he was basically continuing to offer the branch of friendship, or something like it. he'd actually been surprised when she accepted the invitation. as a librarian, she was probably familiar with the movie they'd be watching tonight.

twilight (or the save the earth equivalent of). ]

[ ooc: more or less a mingle log! throw up your own threads, go hog wild, yeah!
here's the apartment layout for reference. they're on the second floor! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ he certainly isn't going to deny that he wishes ravi had, but he won't voice it. instead, he makes a resigned 'what's done is done' kind of noise.

after a moment, he relaxes his knees and motions halfheartedly in the ledger's direction. ]

I didn't read all of it. It's all words- sentences- no context.

[pause again. his curiosity is piqued, especially since his and Alex's pulses seem connected. maybe something in there will be relevant to him...]

...Can I look?

Yeah.

[ he doesn't think to mention that there's a huge gap in blank pages between the page with "Anders Brown" on it and Lord Myron's call to arms. o well ravi will figure it out. ]

[he picks it up and turns it over in his hands briefly to inspect it. the polka dots are cute, but he does not understand why they would be there. When he flips to the first page and sees the name 'Anders Brown' his brow furrows in confusion.]

Do you know whose name this is?

Mine. Not mine mine, but- an alias.

Ah. [double-take, bc that does not look like Alex's handwriting at all.]

[...does that mean they are going to echo back different handwriting eventually?! omg...]

[he starts leafing through it, increasingly puzzled with every blank page, until he finally comes across the entry, which he stops to read.]

[WOW THAT SURE IS A MASSIVE FUCKING TEXTWALL WITH LITERALLY ZERO CONTEXT. Jesus. He skims it, skims the replies, and stops to actually read when he comes across the thread with 'Anders Brown's' name attached.]

[well that is. a thing. he pauses to glance up at Alex]

Have you read through this yet?

Edited 2013-09-24 08:21 (UTC)

[ just gonna close his eyes and zone while ravi reads the ledger.

he doesn't open them when he answers. ]

Not all of it.

The things you wrote?

[they have that Anders Brown name attached, so he's assuming that's what that means.]

[ he opens his eyes, glances at ravi uneasily. ]

No... [ he wrote something? dnw tbh. ]

[thaaaat is definitely not a 'please tell me' kind of reaction]

...Never mind it, then.

Was it bad?

[ it was bad, wasn't it. he doesn't even know what the fuck he would write there-- DID HE TELL PEOPLE HE WAS A VAMPIRE? ]

Ah, well. That is hard to say without any context.

[but from what he can tell, it's probably not great.]

[and then there's this. The comment is only a single word with a name attached. Amelia Varista. "Dad." That's all it takes to draw his attention.]

[He remembers Alex having a daughter. He never mentioned it because he remembered it alongside the dead wife, and it seemed like something better left unsaid. He keeps reading, intrigued and curious.]

["Your godfather." "Uncle Ravi." WHOA, HOLD UP.]

[while he's going back to re-read that bit, that's when the Echo hits him. he goes distant for a second, and when he refocuses, he starts re-reading the whole conversation with a sudden intensity.]

[Amelia. He remembers her. Alex's daughter. His goddaughter. She was bubbly and energetic, always greeted him with an excited 'Uncle Ravi!' and a fierce hug. And also, she was five.]

[This is not the handwriting of a five-year-old. She sounds mid-teens at the very youngest. "[I] was dead for 17 years," Alex wrote, so she cannot possibly be any younger than 16.]

[But. She was dead. He remembers that very clearly. Her, her mother, his sister, all of them dead and half-buried in rubble. And she didn't look any older than 5. So why...]

[Oh. ...Oh, wow. He was not expecting that. That is not okay. Now that he remembers her as a person, thinking about her death brings a wash of grief with it. He remembers feeling overwhelming hopelessness, loss, dismay--but now there's something to anchor the memory of those feelings to. They're no longer abstract memories about faces with no context.]

[One of those faces has context, now. She is a five-year-old girl who was always overjoyed to see him, and she is dead.]

[he flips the ledger shut, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath to collect himself. when he opens them, he sets the ledger down on the bed and glances awkwardly toward the wall a couple feet to Alex's left. he's pretty sure his reaction was obvious, no use denying it.]

A pulse. We can talk about it later. [it's not a deflection. he is genuinely letting Alex know that they don't have to discuss it right now.]

[ he's watching the whole thing, confusion and unease rising.

he doesn't take his eyes off of ravi. at length, he says, ] As in, you just got one...?

[he nods.]

[he folds his arms, and after a moment, slides his eyes over to Alex]

I don't think now is a good time for you to hear it.

[ WHAT

fucking shitballs, it was something terrible, wasn't it? which meant there was probably something terrible in the whole of that entry -- that he had written? fucking-

he smothers his face in his hands again, groaning in frustration, and suddenly, keenly, wants to physically lash out.

he doesn't. he crosses his legs and hunches over, toes curled and jaw clamped shut, tongue pushing against his teeth.

he exhales through his nose. he is not looking ravi or the ledger, but the bed. when he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically clipped and quiet. ]

Okay.

[ he is a bomb waiting to go off. he needs to expel his agitation. night jog? that's the best thing he can think of. ]

[deep breath. he feels really bad about having elicited that reaction. honestly, he doesn't want to talk about it right now either, and he may just be using Alex's mood as an excuse. it makes him feel guilty.]

[but, you know, he already feels awful thanks to that pulse. might as well roll with it.]

I'll let you be. [and take some time to himself. he retreats from Alex's room to grab a pack of cigarettes from his own and heads out to the balcony.]

[ AND THEN HE WENT FOR A RUN, HUFF PUFF

the end. ]