late night gardening, take one (closed)

[mapsio]

» WHO? Ren Amamiya (hearttheft ) & Haru Okumura ( mapsio ), possibly others later.
» WHEN? After the Fallout™ and the Town Meeting
» WHERE? In the hydroponics garden
» WHAT? Late night gardening because these rebellious teens can't sleep.
» WARNINGS? NONE, except for teenage angst?


[It is some time after the fallout with Akechi, and the stressful few hours that all of them spent in the town meeting. Emotions, thoughts, and a touch of adrenaline are still plaguing Haru later into the night. To avoid waking her roommates up she decides to take a walk around the station to collect herself, and pop by the hydroponics garden to check for any sprouts.

She feels secure in getting the help that she needed or the garden, and now all that is left is to keep an eye on it.

What she doesn't expect is having company right as she walks in. Her leader, kneeling down and doing what looks to be tending to the plants. Certainly she appreciates the effort and time he is putting in, but why so late?]

You know, it is awfully late for you to be out here gardening.

[Says the girl who is out doing the exact same thing.]

Comments

[intrusivethot]

[ "Fallout" is a fairly appropriate word choice. It has lovely word associations like "nuclear" and with an eye on the last half hour to forty-five minutes that is perhaps a good descriptor for his entirely civil, not at all dramatic late evening talk with one Goro Akechi.

So here Ren is. Trying to use his hands. Trying to make something grow, tender little sprouts that maybe Ren doesn't have the same connection to as Haru but that he was beginning to understand throughout their rooftop conversations at Shujin, a dialogue which continues in a new timbre here.

There is no alarm that rings when he senses a presence behind him. This is justified when Haru speaks, Ren answering in kind in customarily soft tones that don't hide the raw quality it has taken on. ]

Restless minds produce restless hands. I wanted to check on plants, see if they were happy.

Same for you, Haru-chan?

[mapsio]

[It seems that having it out with Akechi Goro wasn't an uncommon thing. It was bound to happen on this ship. Haru is tired, eyes still unnaturally puffy from her outburst of emotions earlier in the evening.

She watches over Ren's shoulder, the delicacy he takes with the sprouts. It's only been a week and they were already looking better than when they were first discovered.

Haru is glad Ren hasn't turned around, she isn't sure she could hide the look she has plastered on her face right now. One that screams that she has no direction for whatever emotion she may be feeling at the moment.]

It's the same.

[She manages a small smile.] Are the plants happy in your opinion, Ren-kun?

[intrusivethot]

[ The unfortunate result of being locked inside a pressure cooker is that sooner or later the contents will begin to, you know, pressurize. It was not the first nor will it be the last such encounter. Ren can feel it in his bones like the weather.

When he's finished transferring the next sprout to a spot a bit further central to the heat lamps, encouraging it to grow as big as its neighbors, he sits back on his haunches and wipes the dustings of soil from his hands, humming. ]

They are. Look how fast they've grown.

[ They have a lot of love and concern put into them. A lot of hope riding on them, and though the inhabitants of this station can get by on protein slop there is something to be said for the products of love nourishing those who poured that love into them in return. An easy reciprocation which is somewhat lacking of late.

Ren pinches the bridge of his nose, pushes under the glasses frame to rub at the poor abused skin underneath his eyes. Turning, Haru is a soft blur in the corner of his vision. ]

It's nice to have a reminder of the things that we make better than when we found them.

[ Why does he sound so sad when he says that though? ]

[mapsio]

Isn't it? Even if the one you just moved isn't quite as big or strong as the others yet. Your love and attention will encourage it to grow perhaps even taller than the ones who had a head start.

[Haru can't help but feel they are talking about something without being too direct about it. For her? That's fine. She's had enough tears tonight. Her head hurts, and she hoped that coming here would alleviate some of her emotions.]

Don't let it be stubborn, leaving it be will cause it to wilt. But if you come back to it... [She leans over, brushing her fingertips along the smallest sprout.] There is no doubt in my mind it will grow.

[She takes a deep breath. Ren sounds as broken as she does. It isn't supposed to be like that.]

Can we keep the plants happy, Ren-kun?

[intrusivethot]

[ Ren hums agreeably; that view excises the uglier, complicated parts that keep winding up as sticking points in their attempts to care for... the plants. The metaphor overall would fit except for that. There is no mapping sentience onto them, no easy win for love and attention when the problem diseasing the root was a shitty father.

For a while he can't answer truthfully. It sticks in his throat, caught up in the messy rawness that tears leave, and while he loves Haru and her presence is a balm addressing it this soon after hurts in tiny, significant ways. In how mere speech aggravates the vocal cords he was restraining, cords of muscle fighting against hysteria and the urge to shout down those distortions. ]

They need community; plants can't survive alone.

[ A harsher admission than maybe she wanted, but rather than dwell on the darker interpretation- ]

And we shouldn't. I think happiness comes after that.

[mapsio]

This plant thinks it can survive alone, right? When in reality no one wants that for the plant.

[She looks up, tears welling in her eyes again.] You try everything you can to tend to it, and it ends up giving you a thorn every single time. The plant is on the path of never recovering, and... and you just don't know what to do about it.

[The plant metaphor works well enough when she doesn't want to utter his name. She's wiping at her eyes, the tears that had threatened to fall hitting her cheeks.

She doesn't want Ren to look at her like this. So she turns herself away, pretending to look at another plant. She has to be stronger than this.]

Sometimes you just don't feel strong enough to help the plant, and you feel like you have been defeated.

[intrusivethot]

[ By the time the metaphor goes from heavy-handed to bonecrushing the pain on Ren's face gets shut safely behind a wall of careful calm even as Haru is having a tough time avoiding a complete unraveling.

It's just not enough to do so much, to pour out yourself and have it thrown back in your face for no fault of your own or their own or anything that they can affect now and it's cutting Ren up inside. Not knowing how to explain to Akechi that he didn't want to use him, he didn't want to be another shitty person making a shitty decision but he had no other option.

But here Ren is standing up finally, dusting himself off before he reaches to gently take Haru's arm to follow suit. And hold her loosely to him. ]

Haru-chan.

[ Didn't they agree they needed to rely on each other? You can share that feeling of defeat with someone that's feeling the same; it'd be you getting mad at him if he decided to try and hide, so

Lean on him. ]

[mapsio]

[Ren acting so calm doesn't really help her in the long run. She's standing here fighting the urge to continue crying about the fact that not even she could talk sense into Akechi Goro, and Ren is bottling it again. She just knows it.

Ren doesn't need to say much more, she gathers. She won't fight it when he pulls her to him. Though she's still trying to wipe the tears from her eyes. She doesn't want to cry in front of him.]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset in front of you.

[Which is strange of her to say really, it is rare when Haru shows this much in front of someone.]

[intrusivethot]

[ That's the thing, Ren isn't bottling it up. Or, he doesn't think he is; his natural reaction to adversity is anger, and frustration like what they're facing almost requires calm because of how unhelpful frustration is. It simply builds on itself, swirling and swirling into a self sustaining hurricane of negativity.

Tears in the moment, that's fine. It's good, even, needed to express what needs to be said and expel more besides. He's not sorry for appearing weak in front of Haru in its wake and the last thing he wants is for Haru to think it's a problem. ]

I'm upset too. [ She might even see the raw red beneath his eyes from this distance, obstructed as it is by his overgrown bangs curling around his glasses frames. ] It's worth crying over, you know? Seeing someone so hopeless and not being able to do anything about it right now, but...

[ Ren smiles, the tiniest, surest thing. ]

We have time. If there's anything else that comes out of being on this stupid station, we've suddenly got a lot of time, right?

So we go back again and again, just like you said.

[mapsio]

[She does notice the red under his eyes, matching with her own. She hates that she can't seem to get it together right now, but having Ren be in some sort of solidarity with her makes the crying only a little better than it was before.

She presses her face into his shoulder, hiding it from him. She's not handling any of this as well as she thought she would.]

We have too much time... which means he has too much time. He has all the time in the world now to avoid us and to tell us how much he hates us....and how much he assumes we hate him.

I don't believe I have gotten this bothered over someone before.

[intrusivethot]

[ If anything it makes Ren hold her tighter, his heart juddering erratically with aching, with loving, and everything in between. ]

S'not your fault. It's not even mine, he's - I don't know what to say to him to make him understand.

[mapsio]

It bothers me.

[She's that plain and simple. It... bothers her. Nothing ever bothers her to this degree. She feels like she's so good at putting on a face around people and then this happens. It's not fair.

It's not fair.]

This isn't fair, Ren-kun. I don't know what to do.

[intrusivethot]

[ Ren is in the same position, maybe moreso; he's used to listening to peoples' fears and problems and helping them figure out solutions. He's used to swallowing him own and skating by on prowess and cleverness, both of which is stripped of him along with his Joker mask, the actual manifestation of the Leader Of The Phantom Thieves.

And even if he was here, it wouldnt' help; Akechi loathes him. He loathes Ren too, as much as he's sure that he's desperate for Ren's help on a level and can't reconcile actually receiving it. But he could fix things for Haru in some way. He could make things okay and Ren's an imposter good for not being able to stop Haru's tears. ]

I wish I knew, too.