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Who: Saitou (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iaijutsu) & Okita (tuberculosis)
When: Backdated to when everything was getting frozen over, because I am still dead from December but this conversation was super overdue and needed to get posted already.
Where: Their apartment.
What: Some much needed clearing of the air about their respective CRAU baggage and that time they accidentally made out and whatnot.
Rating/Warning: Nothing yet. Will edit.
[Saitou has never been the kind of person to complain needlessly, and his first reaction to damned near anything is to 1) fix it, if it is a problem that can be fixed (or a problem that can be told to shut up, as the case may be), and if that fails, 2) ignore it.
The problem of the weather, despite his well-intentioned but clumsy attempts to coax something out of the heater, seems to be falling firmly in the category of Type 2 Problem.
But this isn't the first time he's been in an unfamiliar place that got unnaturally cold, and the results of that particular trick of the weather in Zelien don't instill a great deal of confidence in him that it is indeed a trick of the weather alone, or one that he can afford to simply ignore as he'd rather.
He spends nearly a full day trying, though - and the fact that he hasn't felt an overpoweringly irrational urge to set himself on fire is certainly a good sign, but it's not enough of one to be convincing, and by the end of the day, whatever barely-noticeable signs of slight discomfort he's been showing have given way to far more clear-cut uneasiness. (As clear-cut as anything ever gets with him, at least, but if anyone knows the signs, it ought to be Souji.)
He knows full well what he's going to open himself up to if he asks, but annoyance is the lesser evil, with the possibilities running through his mind right now, and so after another fruitless attempt to get the heater to turn back on, he - doesn't turn to look at Souji.
They're not that good at looking each other in the eye lately.]
...Souji.
Are you cold?
[Understatement of the century? It might be.]
iaijutsu) & Okita (tuberculosis)When: Backdated to when everything was getting frozen over, because I am still dead from December but this conversation was super overdue and needed to get posted already.
Where: Their apartment.
What: Some much needed clearing of the air about their respective CRAU baggage and that time they accidentally made out and whatnot.
Rating/Warning: Nothing yet. Will edit.
[Saitou has never been the kind of person to complain needlessly, and his first reaction to damned near anything is to 1) fix it, if it is a problem that can be fixed (or a problem that can be told to shut up, as the case may be), and if that fails, 2) ignore it.
The problem of the weather, despite his well-intentioned but clumsy attempts to coax something out of the heater, seems to be falling firmly in the category of Type 2 Problem.
But this isn't the first time he's been in an unfamiliar place that got unnaturally cold, and the results of that particular trick of the weather in Zelien don't instill a great deal of confidence in him that it is indeed a trick of the weather alone, or one that he can afford to simply ignore as he'd rather.
He spends nearly a full day trying, though - and the fact that he hasn't felt an overpoweringly irrational urge to set himself on fire is certainly a good sign, but it's not enough of one to be convincing, and by the end of the day, whatever barely-noticeable signs of slight discomfort he's been showing have given way to far more clear-cut uneasiness. (As clear-cut as anything ever gets with him, at least, but if anyone knows the signs, it ought to be Souji.)
He knows full well what he's going to open himself up to if he asks, but annoyance is the lesser evil, with the possibilities running through his mind right now, and so after another fruitless attempt to get the heater to turn back on, he - doesn't turn to look at Souji.
They're not that good at looking each other in the eye lately.]
...Souji.
Are you cold?
[Understatement of the century? It might be.]
no subject
...clearing the air. Putting it out straight instead of leaving Souji to guess what has him so ill at ease with something as seemingly ordinary as a cold snap.]
Most didn't feel anything. [He doesn't specify that he's talking about what happened then. Context is obvious enough, and even when this needs to be said - he'd rather not use any more words on it than he has to.] But for those who did, nothing helped. The locals were building funeral pyres outside the buildings we stayed in.
[That's all easier. That's all inspecific, generalities, the actions of others and not something specific and personal.
It's the last part he really doesn't want to get to.]
Had I not been stopped, I'd have been on one.
["stopped" is a mild way to put "punched out and tied to a bed until he found his marbles." But he'd rather not go there unless Souji really wants specifics, and he trusts Souji to know better than to push for more than he's ready to give.]
Most of us hadn't arrived yet. Yukimura has forgotten it, so only Hijikata-san remembers that.
[He doesn't have to say "so for the love of god, don't discuss this with any of them" to get the message across.]
no subject
it doesn't mean that he's not curious, of course. that dissonance in the memories is one that always bothers him, and even if he does largely the same by not talking about haven very much (save for acknowledging that it was definitely a Thing that happened), it grates at him.]
It's funny how that works, isn't it? [he muses, somewhat idly. it's a silent agreement that he won't bring it up to any of the others, because souji understands all too well what it means to reveal traumatizing things to people who have absolutely no memory of it happening. sure, the circumstances are still a bit different, but it doesn't change that it's the same at their core.
so instead, he sighs, pulling away the blankets he's been using to keep himself warm atop his own bed, holding them as he stands and moving to sit next to saitou. he drapes them out over the two; he's still cold himself, but souji's not a totally inconsiderate asshole all the time. he doesn't really want saitou suffering or worrying about that stuff, and with the strange need to clear the air between them and compensate for his own fuckups a few weeks earlier? it seems like the best compromise until he can find the words for himself.]
I don't think the ones here are interesting in messing with us in the same way. Who knows? Maybe this place has a weather machine and someone just hit the wrong button. [souji wouldn't doubt it. that's what happened in haven to cause a whole lot of snow and cold. machine controlled weather seemed crazy at one point, but he thinks it's even more plausible here than there. besides—it's easier to try and lighten the conversation a bit than to have saitou focus on the shitty things.]
no subject
But he understands. There's a lot that needs to be said, maybe, but words have never been the only way either of them has ever said everything to each other, and they're certainly not always the easiest one to manage.
His hand curls around the side of the blankets Souji's dropped over them, pulling it in tighter.]
They don't seem so interested in being blatantly sadistic, no. [Which is strange and catches him somewhere between "relieved" and "constantly looking for the less blatant sadism," because it's hard to believe there isn't some kind of a catch. But...that's not the point right now, is it? Souji is. They're...maybe not fixing things, but they're getting closer than they have since they arrived here.]
...a machine that controls the weather would have sounded so ridiculous, before.
no subject
[despite the heavier subject matter the conversation is based on, it feels a little more comfortable than earlier. it's the kind of thing the two of them can talk about with a little more ease, even if the things that make them wary are still lined in their words. but it's not talking directly of the traumatizing events or the way souji acted out; it's not talking about what happened the night of his bloodlust, either. so for a moment, they can put it out of their minds and talk in a manner that suits them better.
it's something they haven't been able to do very often at all in recent weeks, so souji wants to take that for what is. it's a small step in the right direction, a medium point where they try to seek some kind of normalcy before they can do much else. finding the right words, knowing what to say when he fucks up—that's incredibly hard for souji, especially when it comes to saitou. they'd always been so good at effortlessly communicating with few words, or words that held double meanings. so to try and be direct, to try and say "sorry i killed you right after we made out—and by the way, what do we do about that?" is... difficult, to say the least. he's trying, and he's sure saitou understands what he's trying to do here, but it's not the sort of thing he can do without a little effort. especially when he knows this isn't something that's easy for saitou either.]
no subject
[He doesn't like the proliferation of machines; it's a little too close to the way guns are edging out everything he's already poured himself into, making his entire life irrelevant in the face of modern warfare. For not just swordsmen, but even things like the weather to be subject to machine control...
It's unnerving.]
no subject
Is it the future, or is it just places like these, though? I don't think a machine that controls the weather is a terribly common thing otherwise. [if only because back in haven, even the people who came from more technology savvy futures seemed to be surprised about it and had to learn how to control it themselves. that counts for something, he thinks.
maybe he wants to hold onto some kind of hope, though. he already knows the future of their kind, of samurai, is one that will only live on as legends. surely, not everything else can give way to that too.]
no subject
[It's not the kind of question that would ever have occurred to him to ask, and he does have to admit to himself that it's nothing he can imagine thinking to mention, if he were from somewhere that thought of it as normal.]
no subject
[of course, haven was a run down piece of crap. and there were still a lot of basics that went over his head, but because of how things were, he learned quickly from others what he needed to know. it's different than here, where everything seems so well and beyond even that much that it leaves their heads spinning.]
Most there seemed familiar with that sort of thing. Here, it seems like even those types had a learning curve. [considering he's met some familiar faces that didn't remember him... and some who also came from haven too.]
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[Well, at least some of them weren't from this far, at least - he's gathered that much from Rei. But so many people were talking about things that were difficult to wrap his mind around. Like hacking and coding frequencies on the devices. Or nuclear radiation, which is still really weird no matter how he tries to slice it.]
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[not unless they can get some solid specific information on that type of thing. but even if they did... well, would it really matter much? they're here and it doesn't change much else anyway. it's not exactly the most productive thing to work towards unless they stumble upon it seeking out the bigger picture.
which is annoying in itself, of course. it's enough to make souji sigh a bit, which is followed up by a pretty big shiver.]
...It's getting worse. [and to that, he makes a face. the cold is getting out of control at this point, and honestly... it worries souji a bit. if not for his own sake, then for saitou's.]
no subject
It is.
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We may have to see if there's somewhere warmer for us to go. It won't do anyone any good if we end up like two icicles under a blanket here. [not that souji really wants to move. it's cold out there, but how long can this really sustain them?]
no subject
But that argument, he knows, isn't really holding any weight right now. (And isn't it worse to let what's happened rule his judgment like this?)]
You're right.
[Though for now, he just pulls that blanket tighter.]
...it would not be prudent to move until we have an idea of where we ought to be going, however.
no subject
[okay, so maybe that's just a piss-poor attempt at trying to lighten the mood a little. souji can easily tell that the circumstances are troubling and distracting for saitou as it is. it's not as if sitting there and sharing a blanket in an already-cold room is doing them many favors, after all, and he still can't really breach the other heavy topic that looms over them.
this is the only way he knows how to cope, and boy, is he taking advantage of it right now. even if it's probably the worst idea ever.]