maskormenace

[The last time Brendan's mother had held him and let him cry, he'd been in preschool. Back then, he'd thought that sort of familial love was written into stone, that it lasted forever, that he would always have someone around. Then his parents started to get busier. They just wanted to make sure he had money for college and a roof over his head. They were flawed, but he didn't hate them. He missed them. He missed not being alone.

He was going to make a home somehow for him, Emily and the baby. It was going to be rough, but he could have, would have, found work. They were going to beat the odds and he was going to hold his daughter close in all the ways his parents never did for him and-

Brendan cries until he gradually loses the energy to. There's still a void, there. There maybe always will be, he doesn't know. But he doesn't feel like he needs to go drink until he's blind or steal sleeping pills from the pharmacy downtown or anything like that. The future, he still can't picture, can't handle. Tonight, though, he can handle that, and maybe, if he takes it one day at a time, he can keep staying alive, if only because it would really hurt Manabu if he didn't.

Post-crying, he falls asleep against the other guy, tired on a level that goes much deeper than lack of rest.]

[not far along the way, Manabu's breathing matches rhythm and he nods off, that running catching up to him. exhaustion sleep is the most satisfying: reward for a fully worked day, a properly completed task. the prize is the absence of dreams, good and bad. but by nature, it's not a gift he accepts wholly, winding up snorting himself awake in the earliest hours of the morning.

he blinks blearily at his darkened surroundings, confused and slow to remembering the wheres and whys. the weight and sound of Brendan in his lap jogs his memory, and for a while he forcibly stills, fighting the urge to stand and stretch stiff limbs. he idly checks his comm (4am? that's it?) and wonders on his schedule for the day. besides study, not much...

a half hour or so later, he finally decides to move, very mindful to be slow and thoughtful about it lest he wake the boy, and swaps his lap for one of the couch pillows, certain that'll be much more comfortable for Brendan. free to get up, he stifles a grunt behind his hand as his legs stretch. then, he sets to a quiet and careful wander of the place, consoling his self-conscious worries by reminding himself he's not a burglar.

a blanket is found and carefully laid over Brendan and, after almost slamming his shins into the coffee table and ruining the quiet, Manabu grabs the other couch pillow and sets down on the floor.

a few more hours won't hurt. nothing's open anyway.]

[Brendan sleeps like the dead, and so Manabu doesn't wake him. It's been a while since he didn't have nightmares involving something that happened back home, so the sleep is sorely needed; he doesn't so much as curl up for warmth, too deep in sleep to move. His glasses are askew on his face like this, which isn't a disruption to his sleep given he's fallen asleep with them on more than once.

Normally an early riser, he wakes up at six. For a moment panic shoots through him. The last time he fell asleep on someone was after- he doesn't finish the thought, because he's been refusing to finish that thought since it happened, because men don't get taken advantage like women - but. These are not the cream colored walls of the room that happened in, this couch is not that third-hand mattress, and Manabu is on the floor a respectable distance away. For a moment Brendan lays there and remembers how to breathe, forces the feeling of fear away, and then he gets up, careful to be quiet, drapes the blanket Manabu put on him over the guy's sleeping form, and tip-toes to the kitchen to make coffee, if for no other reason than that he can and it's a way of saying thank you.

He doesn't turn on the radio like he normally would, but he does hum. For the first time since he got here, he finds himself humming something other than Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday. And it's a small step, all things considered, but it's a step, and that's more than enough, right now.]

Muh.

[his mom's off somewhere, singing. kitchen maybe? he smells something.

but Bruce is nudging him with his foot, telling him to get up. that's annoying. weird, too, because usually Bruce wouldn't bother even trying, rather letting Manabu get in trouble for being late and reap what he sows.

it's weirder, too, because he hears David making a bet with Kaidan about whether or not Bruce is gonna boot him square on the nose in less than five minutes.

weird because Manabu doesn't remember introducing Kaidan to the crew. whys everyone at his house anyway?

he rolls, and Bruce kicks him again.]

A-ow! [by which to say, Manabu rolls and his elbow hits the leg of the coffee table. grumbling, he squints accusingly at it, realizing he dreamed that assault. it can still be Bruce's fault anyway.

sitting up, he rubs his elbow and glances around, stopping for a moment with a flicker of worry in not seeing Brendan on the couch. but his ears perk at the hum, and once he leans enough to peer in the other room, he exhales.

that's good. ]

[Brendan's pretty decent at navigating the kitchen. He's made his own food for most of his life, he can do breakfast on his own without waking Manabu up. The guy was decent enough to stay with him, the least he can do is try to scrounge up some coffee. There's some blueberry muffins in the kitchen, too, his doing since Archie's a health nut.

He hears the thud and the 'ow', snorting once. It's not quite a chuckle, but that's mostly because it's too early for that, at least without something to drink or eat first. Leaning over, he catches Manabu's gaze for a second. The whole thing is both awkward and not awkward. Maybe 'new' is the best word for it.]

Hey. Um, I made coffee. An' blueberry muffins, if that's your thing?

[smiling:] Breakfast-anything is my thing. Definitely. Thanks!

[he looks better, Manabu thinks. it's a relief, and it's energizing in a way. he's glad he was able to help, even a little. there's no fixing grief the way Brendan has, but there's ways to keep walking forward. he's sure this kid can, even if he'll trip along the way now and then. Manabu's the same in that respect.

he gets up, tossing the pillow on the couch and setting to folding up the blanket, his mouth quirking realizing this wasn't on him in the first place. once it's tossed in turn out of the way, he meanders over toward the kitchen, rubbing sleep out of his eye.]

Did you sleep okay?

[Brendan breathes out, not sure entirely what to do given he didn't exactly have sleepovers as a kid, but breakfast isn't complicated. He nods and gets mugs for the coffee, glad to have at least done some of this right.]

I did. Which is far from my status quo, so... thanks. And, uh, thanks for last night, too.

[Is that the right thing to say, under the circumstances? Fuck if he knows, anymore. These days everything feels off-kilter, he just tries to deal with it as it comes along.] An' I'm sorry for dumping all my issues on you outta the blue. That was kinda shitty of me.

[he makes a gentle, dismissive sound in his nose.]

It's nothing to apologize for. It was building up a lot, wasn't it? Needed to come out. [he steps out of the way and leans on an adjacent countertop, hands behind his back.] I'm just thankful you let me help! That says a lot about how far you've come, you know. I'm glad.

I sorta dumped some of it on one of my housemates already. Thought that'd do the trick, but I guess it didn't. [He shrugs, helplessly, pulling out the plastic tupperware container full of muffins he made yesterday and placing it on the counter for Manabu to have at it as he digs through the fridge for coffee creamer and milk.]

You know this goes both ways, right? If you wanna talk or something, I mean. I'm not looking to win any 'friend of the year' medals but I'd like to think I could be halfway decent at this stuff in a pinch.

[This is not, cannot, be a one-way street. One way streets lead to resentment and then anger and then it all snowballs. More importantly, he feels like helping Manabu out somehow. Not because he owes it to him, either, just because he can and because he's done the same for Brendan.]

[he laughs, nodding, while reaching and sliding the container his way. food-anything is perfect; his stomach is very aggressively reminding him he didn't eat last night.]

You got it. I might need reminding, but so do you. It's fair.

[this first muffin is getting straight-up destroyed with zero regrets. he swallows hard, grimacing (but not regretting), and exhales loudly.]

Isn't there some saying about people and islands? I forget.

Ugh. Cliches like that are the bane of English Lit. students; way too much of classtime was us coming up with retorts to the original phrases, you have no idea. [His lips quirk for a moment, remembering better times spent shit-talking books with other students in English class, picking apart language and putting it back together. He's good at that. Or he was. He hasn't had much of a chance to do that sort of thing lately.]

The saying is 'no man is an island', but I'll point out now what I used to back then: islands are already being touched, just by the ocean, not other land. [He drops his gaze to his coffee, focusing overly-hard on stirring creamer into his mug.] Guess that takes on new dimensions since oceans make me wanna hurl these days. My AP English teacher woulda loved the irony of it all.

[he chuckles quietly at Brendan's disdain, already picking a second one up, belatedly hesitating before realizing it's too late, he already touched it. oh well. his now.

he chews slower, pushing a glob of muffin over to one cheek, tilting his head as the tone grows more somber. he gulps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and goes quiet for a moment, thoughtful.

a little dubious:] Well...islands are connected to land underneath all that, right? So there's that.

[frowns.] Except floating ones. But those are in the air away from the ocean anyway.

Other than the island of literal trash that humanity created by dumping it into the ocean; of all the things to be constant between here and home, somehow that made the cut.

[He snags a muffin before Manabu can wolf them all down. It seems like everybody he meets in this joint is always hungry. Maybe superpowers make people need more food or something. He's not great at biology so he's not going to try and research that, it'd just make his head hurt.]

Back up, Sunset. Your world has floating islands?

[he shakes his head mid-chew, muffled:] Nn-nnrmh. [swallow.] Not Tobito. But there's at least one other planet that has that. There's a lot of weird stuff out there.

[belatedly, he pushes the muffins away from himself. two is more than plenty, he's sure.] There's an old story about Earth long ago that sent people out on a journey to save everyone, and they fought a giant floating island on Jupiter, too. [picking a piece of the one he still has left.] But that might just be a story.

I wonder what the metaphors in the books and stuff there are like. We did a whole thing about how environment informs language in my freshman English class - well, freshman AP English, anyway, the regular English class was rehashing the same stories we'd done in middle school.

[Brendan chews thoughtfully, considering both the fact that Jupiter is a casual place to go visit in some worlds, or at least not the intensive near-impossible mission it'd be if anyone tried it back home, and the fact that his life has gotten to the point where fights on Jupiter are plausible. And then he shrugs.] Sounds legit. First thing people do when they go somewhere new is usually start a fight. Not with an island, usually, but still.

[he laughs off a small wave of self-consciousness, rocking his weight off one leg.]

Maybe someone smarter than me will pop in from home. They'll have better brains to pick in that regard. Maybe David, since he always has a really nice, interesting way of putting things. [his head tilts to one side.] I mean...I wouldn't know if he was lying or not about stuff, but...it'd at least sound pretty cool.

[the last of the muffin gets popped into his mouth, and Manabu pushes off the counter, turning away and scratching at the back of his head while he chews. he does think it's a shame, come to think of it, that he doesn't know enough of the best stuff of home to share. at least-- more than personal experience. things about the railway or what Earth was like. special historical events that might be neat by comparison.

he really was more of just an empty-headed, stubborn, impulsive moron. his mouth quirks, hearing that in Louis' admonishing tone. shame she wasn't around to be surprised to see him working so hard to study.

welp.

hands go on his hips, and, after stepping out of the kitchen, he twists at the waist a couple times, then stretches his arms over his head, tilting one way then the other.]

Maybe I'll come across something interesting in the English books they got here? [after rolling his shoulder, he glances over it with a kind of dubious-looking grin Brendan's way.] You'll be able to tell better than I will as far as that goes, haha.

You're smart, you're just not into what I am. You oughta see my math scores, that'd take me down a couple o' notches in your eyes. From what I've seen, everybody's got something they're aces at. Don't think that because you don't know Shakespeare by heart you're dumb.

[He watches Manabu as he eats, trying to puzzle out how someone who's so positive can be so down on himself sometimes. And really, if Brendan wants to be honest about it, he's only smart about fiction because it was something that got him through how lonely his childhood was. Dad wasn't around? Turn the TV to AMC and watch hard boiled detectives who were way cooler than him anyway. Mom wasn't around? Read books where women were heroes taking on society's fucked up view of them. Both parents were gone? It's fine, that's an opportunity to sit in front of the TV and read during commercials.

If his parents were actually present in his life, he might've turned out more like Manabu. Social, able to handle normal conversations, able to process things.

But.

San Clemente was not Tobito and they weren't in either, anymore.]

I've poked my head into the library here. Got wrapped up in the non-fiction section, though. Figure I should learn this place's history before I learn its' plays, you know? But if I find anything weird I'll let you know.

That'd probably be pretty good, actually... [he'd ducked his head at all the smart talk, but turns around at the offer, shaking the stretch out of his arms before walking back toward the kitchen.] Weird might be relative, but if this Earth is closer to history you know than mine, it could help.

[his eyes drop to the mugs on the table. if anyone thought he forgot there was coffee...they'd be right.

he hooks his finger on the handle of one to slide it a little toward himself.] I've been looking at outlines and study guides for the history part of a test I signed up for, but I think it's...probably banking on me having lived here to pick up context, ha.

...Do you have any milk or cream?

[Brendan pulls the coffee creamer out of the fridge along with the milk, wondering how it's possible to ignore coffee for that long. He hates the taste of it but he runs on it, some days more than others. He spent enough mornings hitting up the cafe on his way to school in lieu of breakfast back home that it's the one thing here that's truly familiar. Coffee, dark alleys, places that sell alcohol to the underaged crowd, and pharmacies that never think to guard their NyQuil - little pillars of familiarity admidst the oddness of being shifted across the country, away from California and all the quirks that same with it.]

Other than the Cold War and the fact I'm from 2006 as opposed to this place's present, everything's matched up ridiculously well. Almost eerie at points. Some shit really shouldn't've been etched in stone like that.

But the thing about history is, it's like acts of a play: you just have to get the order of the scenes right in your head. After that someone can ask you 'when does Mercutio tell Hamlet he's fine when he's actually fatally wounded' and your brain'll go 'before this, that, and after that, oh, so it's Act 3, Scene 1'. And then it'll be lodged in your head from now 'til Hell freezes over.

[Which, clearly, is accurate, given he just pulled that example off the top of his head and got it right and he hasn't even finished his coffee yet.]

[Manabu makes a soft sound, wondering if maybe that trick works if you know who Mercutio and Hamlet even are, or...if it works better after 10am.

the coffee in his mug goes almost sickly pale for how much cream gets dumped in there; honestly he should've just gone straight up with a glass of milk, but there's no going back. before dangerously over-filling, he stops and takes to carefully picking up his drink.]

I wonder if I can think like that... Its hard. I'm usually the kind of person who learns and remembers through experience, but you can't really do that with stuff that's already happened. Not--normally or by choice, anyway.

That's probably why I stink at history. [he nods, then begins to throw back the coffee. like in five loud gulps, no breaks. because coffee is gross but useful and by god he's not wasting food or drink.]

[Brendan has a lot of opinions on Shakespeare. Mostly that he wants Titus Andronicus to get more respect as a play, that The Tempest should never be performed indoors and that Romeo is an asshole who absolutely deserved to die and Juliet could do better.

It's easier to care about fiction. Fiction doesn't bale on you and leave a note saying 'be back soon, here's some $ for school' with a twenty stapled to it for the next couple of weeks. He knows people who have never existed better than he knew his parents and he knows if he lets himself, he'll sit there and think about how maybe he wouldn't have been a good parent himself and he'll end up doing something he'll regret.

So instead he rolls his eyes and fixes Manabu with a look.]

You can learn to think differently. I did. It's just a matter of effort and how important it is to you. If it's important to you, you'll work at it. If it's not, you'll tell yourself it's impossible and quit before you start, and then I'll have to take away your muffin privileges until you get it together.

[the last gulp is the hardest because there's that threat of food being taken away? he exhales loudly and shoots Brendan a look while wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.]

Haah-? That. Sounds a bit cruel... [slightly petulant:] Nobody said anything about quitting, here.

[jabbing his thumb at himself, chin up.] I've got a lot on my plate to accomplish, you know! I'm pretty determined to do just that.

Damn, Sunset, they're muffins, not crack cocaine. [Brendan can't help cracking a smile. He hasn't really laughed since he got here, but Manabu is just so unguarded sometimes, so expressive, he kind of wants to.] If I ever need a favor from you I'll hit up the kitchen, I guess.

Anyway, what's this test you're taking for, exactly?

[he makes a face, a little pink. food is good, what can he say? he's not that complicated.

folding his arms, he glances up in thought, trying to remember what the acronym stands for.] General education...determination? [frown. no.] Something-D. I need that first, [counting off his fingers against his arm.] then I can try to get into one of the police academies. They won't let you just start there. So...

You mean a GED? [Brendan supplies, furrowing his eyebrows slightly.] Otherwise known as the broke man's high school diploma back home. Yeah, you do need to know the basics about life here to be a cop here. I'd sooner shoot myself than go work for the fuzz but, hey, it's your call.

I do get them wanting you to know the basics, though, much as their institution is fucked over in Maurtia Falls and back home. Kara, this Drama Club vamp, evil ex of mine - she's black. Black women have historically always been subject to brutality by police and by the law. For literally hundreds of years. Half the reason I never called the cops on her was that I couldn't be sure they wouldn't decide shooting her was easier than giving her a damn trial.

Now remember we're in the South, and Southern states have even more black people, plus Latinos, plus the baggage of the Civil War that my area never had to deal with. You need to know why people who don't trust cops don't trust 'em and why and what they're afraid of if you're gonna be able to talk to them worth a damn, Manabu. That means history, and fiction, and all the other basics.

[Kara and Brendan had issues - freshman year was rough - but he had promised her when he left her to go back to Emily that he wouldn't get police involved. Drug dealer and manipulator that she was, she wasn't a murderer and she didn't deserve to be shot where someone in her position who was white would get five to ten years in prison. There were some lines that were simply not to be crossed.

He hated Kara, she hated him, but they were amicable enemies. There was a truce there based in the root sentiment of 'thank you for not literally getting me buried'.] God help me, I think I'm developing a conscience. And I'm basically dead on arrival at school, so. I'll help you cram for your test on whatever subjects I can, but more than that, you need to know... things that aren't gonna be kind to your faith in humanity. Shit. There's no way I can dress history up as not being depressing to study sometimes.

[This is why he liked fiction: at the end of the day, no real people were harmed in the making of it.]

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