ya_assemble | [LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

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[LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

Kon was reading at relative superspeed. It wasn't at his usual brisk pace, because he found that the limitations of his powers meant he couldn't retain the knowledge for more than a few minutes at his usual speeds, so he had to slow it down a little, but he was still thumbing through far faster than some of the others were taking just to go through the study guides they'd quickly procured.

"Is it just the fact I'm reading this as superspeed or does this story make no sense?" Kon said, as he thumbed through page after page.

Another reality shard had fallen away and now that their brands had signaled it, it was time to go dimension-hopping. Fortunately, it was a very small shard in the middle of the wilderness in Siberia and the area of effect was spreading slowly, so they had time to prepare.

With his otherworldly wisdom, Manny had managed to help out on this one, communicating some clues about the world they were about to enter by flashing the image of a cover of a book.

A fairly terrible book. Apparently they were entering the world it was based on.

So they were doing their homework as they geared up to go and trying to make sense of the senseless.

"So what I'm getting from this is this is a world where you're not allowed to have more than one personality trait? I think? Under pain of death, you have to be a one-dimensional character."

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At that, Tris looked very thoughtful.

"We are getting super deep and a liiittle dark," said Christina. "So, what I think this moment needs is something to lighten the mood a little bit. Just for now." She raised her eyebrows at them all. "So let's get tattoos. We can mope again and shake our fists at the world later."

Will and Tris and Al immediately all agreed, looking enthused.

Nico reached out and put a hand on Raph's elbow when his voice caught while he was talking about having had Master Splinter in his life. It had been bad enough losing her own parents, and she'd known they were evil. It must have been so much worse to lose a parent who was a genuinely good person.

And then Christina brought up a new distraction, and Nico heaved a sigh, rolling her eyes skyward.

"I'll tag along, but I think I'll pass on the ink," she said. "I like to keep as much of my blood inside my body as possible in case I need it later."

For just a moment, the look he gave Nico for putting her hand on his elbow like that was pure gratitude. More and more, it was harder to be guarded with her. She just had a way of yanking the sincerity right out of him and the craziest thing about it was now she didn't even need words. She could do it with a look or a touch.

But then Christina conveniently distracted them all.

Raph considered what she'd said and his eyes started to light up in the way only a teenage boy's could at the prospect of getting something ridiculously awesome (like flames!) permanently etched onto his body.

"We can get tattoos." He looked sideways at Nico. "I can get a tattoo."

He could get a tattoo. That wasn't something he could do back home. It wasn't like he could just walk into a tattoo parlor. But right now he looked just like a normal human.

Nico rolled her eyes again.

"You can get a tattoo," she said. "I can continue to involve as little bleeding as possible in my self-expression."

Why was he so excited about getting a tattoo? It wasn't like he couldn't just--

Oh. No, he couldn't just find a tattoo parlor that wasn't anti-mutant back home. They didn't have those where he was from, just him and his brothers and maybe a handful of other people in the entire world.

"Anyway," she said, less scornfully, "I'll tag along and help you guys pick out ideas. It'll be fun."

Raph slowed up just a little bit as they all trotted along out of the dorm, so that they didn't fall that far behind, but so the others wouldn't overhear him as he talked to Nico.

"Do you think you could make it permanent? We could just slip into the bathroom or something so you could get out your staff."

He resorted to begging. He was not above begging. Puppy eyes were go.

"Pleeease?"

"You could probably get tattooed back at the Pole," Nico answered, raising her eyebrows at him. She was totally unmoved by his puppy eyes. He could be as freaking adorable as he wanted, it wasn't making her insides feel soft and squishy at all. "There's pictures of North everywhere, there's no way that there aren't things for tattooing people like us. You could look at it and go I got this in Santa's workshop instead of I got this in an awful hellhole of a universe where I had to fake being a jackbooted thug for several weeks."

She sighed again, more heavily.

"But if you really, really want to, fine."

"Yesss!"

He raised his hands in the air, jubilantly.

"Everything's always busy back at the Pole and a lot of the good myths are in hiding, right? It might not be easy to find someone that can do it and with how busy Jack and Bunny are, I don't think they'll really appreciate me asking 'em to find me a myth-ey tattoo artist, even with a 'pretty please.'"

They were usually busy since they were always trying to teach and train and den brother people any time they weren't out there fighting.

He danced around her now, practically skipping with excitement.

"'Sides, I feel like getting through this thing so far without punching somebody in charge in the face warrants a little reward. For my infinite patience."

"I could probably magically tattoo you," Nico countered. "But I guess if needles are your idea of a reward, I should probably just let you have fun with that."

She shook her head as his skipping took him just out of whisper-range for a moment. "I think I could do with a little bit less of that patience..."

Not quite out of range. He stopped to face her for a moment when he heard it.

They all had to be patient but one of the things they had to be most patient about was how she was targeted for things in the way people were when they were behind everyone else.

"Hey, you do know that we have your back, right?" he asked her. "This place is lousy but if it really came down to it, and they actually tried something, you know we'd break cover and make 'em regret it, don't you?"

It was terrible but the threat of something bad happening was an illusion, as far as he was concerned. The reality was that the second things turned genuinely threatening, whoever was making it threatening was going to pay for it.

"Because we would." A pause. "I would. In a heartbeat."

"Yeah, you've said," Nico said, glancing to make sure that the others were still out of range. "I don't really want to talk about how awful this place is."

Which was why she'd whispered that comment, hoping he wouldn't catch it.

"It doesn't fix anything and it's just going to make me feel worse, so let's just not."

A part of her had to have wanted him to overhear or she wouldn't have said it at all. He didn't like it. He didn't like that she couldn't trust it and it wasn't her fault she couldn't. They'd had enough revealing little talks at 2 am for him to know that it wasn't her fault, that she had good reason to not trust that people had her best interests at heart.

He gently reached out for her hand, to stop her, and tried to catch her eye.

"It's not just about this place," he said. "It's in general. Here. Back where we came from."

A pause.

"Anywhere. I just - I just want you to know that." She deserved to feel safe, the way he felt safe because of his brothers and Casey and April, always knowing they had his back. He knew she had that with her friends back home but her friends back home weren't here. "You did the same for me. When me and Mikey needed someone. And you didn't even know us yet."

He paused again, not knowing how else he could convey that, the depths to which he was willing to fight for her, too. The best he could manage was to repeat himself and let those words be a promise this time.

"In a heartbeat."

Edited 2015-03-14 10:23 (UTC)

"I said I don't want to talk about it right now."

And she really didn't want to repeat herself.

Nico let him take her hand, but when she tore her eyes away from the others to meet his, they were more bolted doors than windows to the soul. Too much of her had already slipped out of its protective shell tonight, it was time to pack it all back in. Ignore how much she didn't want to be here, ignore how much she missed her friends, ignore how much she wanted to take Raph at his word, ignore how much she hated that she had no idea how to do it, and so many other things besides. Too much of her was coming out, too much of everything else was getting in.

"I know you're not just going to let me die or anything. I appreciate it a lot. Thank you." She moved forward, trying to tug him along behind her, get them both moving again.

"Let's go get you ink."

He was pretty sure she still didn't believe him and that made his chest ache. He wanted her to feel safe; she deserved to feel safe. But she didn't. If saying that she was safe wasn't convincing her, he decided then that he'd just have to show her.

Actions were louder than words, right? He was always better at actions anyway.

For just a moment, his hand lingered a little too long after she'd tugged him along. He gently pulled it away and then they caught up with the others and made their way to the tattoo parlor.

Like many things in Dauntless it was trying too hard to be edgy with moody reddish and purple lighting and columns that had hanging glass plates of tattoo designs that people could select. All of the Dauntless people milling around were in equally edgy black clothes, many of them skintight.

Raph milled around looking at designs until he found one of a yin yang symbol wreathed in beautifully rendered flames.

He tapped it and looked to Nico. "I'm thinking this one, on my upper arm. But I'm gonna have them do something custom in the middle instead of the yin yang. I've got an idea for something a little more, y'know...personal."

Edited 2015-03-14 20:06 (UTC)

Nico'd been prepared to push back if Raph had tried to force the subject again after the second time she shut him down. But since he hadn't, she'd managed to dial back to a level where she could interact with other people without snapping at them. So she managed to smile when he tapped the glass plate.

"You do strike me as the kind of guy who'd have flames on his arm," she agreed. "What are you getting in the middle? You probably want to make sure that the tattoo artist can draw it on paper before they embed it in your skin."

"I can just draw it myself. I'm okay enough at art. I did a ton of the detailing on the Shellraiser and stuff."

He tapped one of the tattoo artists on the shoulder. "Can you give me something to draw with? I want to have something done custom."

The tattoo artist handed him a little tablet and a stylus to work with and he made quick work of drawing what he wanted. He didn't have any of his original shuriken because Benedict had taken all their original gear, but it was easy enough to draw from memory. He'd pretty much seen the symbol he wanted every day of his life.

"Can you do this one but with this in the center instead of the yin yang? I want it on my right upper arm."

"Yeah, sure. Have a seat."

Raph hopped into the seat very enthusiastically.

The man prepared a little pad attached to wires rather than a typical tattoo artist's needle, pressing it against Raph's arm. He hit a button and there was a brief whining noise and a warm feeling on Raph's arm. Then he peeled the pad away, revealing the tattoo.

"Wait, that's it?" asked Raph, disappointed. "I thought you had to use needles for tattoos."

"Maybe a hundred years ago," the tattoo artist laughed.

"Aw, come on, if it doesn't use needles, how'm I supposed to brag about how hardcore I am?"

Look at that disappointment.

Nico chuckled.

"Guess you don't need me to hold your hand through this, huh?" she teased, craning her neck to get a look at the result. "Looks good!"

She wasn't sure what the symbol he'd chosen was, though. A flower? A turtle?

"I didn't know you did that much drawing," she said, offering him a hand up out of the chair so that they could scurry off to the bathroom before his myth healing digested the ink right off of his arm. "Or painting, I guess."

He shrugged, following along with her towards the unisex bathroom.

"Nothing really artsy. I just like doodling stuff. Lightning and skulls and stuff."

The kind of stuff people put on cars. Or that they doodled in notebooks during math class.

They ducked into a bathroom stall - in here, the bathroom actually had stalls - crowded in together. As soon as the door was closed and locked, he willed the illusion away, so they could see the actual tattoo on his skin. It was still strong and clear but it wasn't likely to stay that way for long.

The flames were pretty cool looking. The symbol inside, however, was a bit more delicate than one might have expected from Raph. It looked almost like a five-petaled flower with a circle around it.

Or a turtle, if you squinted at it right. But Nico was pretty sure it wasn't one, that would be a little weird.

"Well, it looks cool," she said, gripping her forearm with her hand and pulling the Staff of One from her body. It felt weird doing it this way instead of the normal way, but the normal way hadn't been working since she'd gotten here.

"Ack!"

The stall was crowded enough with a teenage girl and a teenage mutant turtle boy in it, adding over five feet of magic staff being pulled from the girl's arm definitely made everything more awkward.

"At least this thing isn't coming out of my chest," she muttered, adjusting her grip to try and deal with the awkward angle. "I'd probably put a hole through you."

Super awkward.

"Quick, quick, before it fades."

It did look cool so he didn't want it to disappear.

"Hang on--"

Whoops, that was almost clubbing him over the head.

"We should have found literally any other private place to do this," Nico said, finally getting everything positioned appropriately. Now she just had to come up with a spell...

"It's not gold, so it stays."

The tattoo stayed nice and clear, well past the point it should have.

"Yesss, it worked." He flashed her a huge smile. "Thank you."

He looked at the tattoo happily, pressing his fingers over it.

Nico watched the way he ran his fingers over it. Reverently. Like it wasn't just cool looking, but that it was also important.

"It's a family thing, isn't it?"

It looked kind of Japanese in design. And Raph didn't really strike her as the kind of guy who was really into flowers for their own sake, especially not enough to have them tattooed on his body and look at them like that.

He gave her a small smile, tinged just slightly with sadness.

"It was the symbol of Master Splinter's ninja clan," he said softly. "He made all our weapons, so we always had it on our shuriken."

It was important. And now he didn't need his father's symbol on his weapons. Now he had it etched in his skin to memorialize him.

"The flames are just 'cause flames are cool."

Nico smiled back, eyes flicking down to the tattoo again.

"Well, I'm glad I could help," she said. "...Now you might want to get out of here, because I'm going to have to flail around until I get this back inside me and it's entirely possible I'll clonk you upside the head."

Raph willed the illusion up again, peeking through the crack created by the stall door to make sure they were still alone, and opened it and walked out, hanging out near the sinks until she could join him.

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staff_and_wielder - 2015-03-15 08:01 (UTC) - Expand

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