ya_assemble | [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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"No," he said, shaking his head, not quite ready to let her go yet, even though his grip on her loosened if she really need to get away. "Oh, Nico, you're not awful."

It hurt. It hurt to hear her apologize for it, to know he was right, but it wasn't her fault she'd been hurt like this, so badly that she tossed herself at whatever warmth and comfort she could find.

He tried to catch her eye.

"You're upset right now and I just don't want to do something with you that you regret later." He shook his head. "I don't want to be something else that hurts you, too."

He reached his hand up to tilt her chin so he could look into her eyes.

"If you want comfort right now, you don't need to - we don't have to do that. And you don't even have to ask. We can go somewhere quiet and I can - I can just -"

He swept his arms around her again in a comforting hug, one that took advantage of how the spell made him feel squishier, warm and strong and safe and loving.

"As long as you need," he breathed out into her ear.

Edited 2015-03-26 10:17 (UTC)

She didn't try to pull all the way away from him -- even if he didn't want her, she still needed someone to touch her. Needed physical contact to keep her from falling back into her memories of attack Eric before they scabbed over. Because otherwise she would, she knew she'd sit there and play them over and over and over until they were imprinted on her memory in unnecessarily lurid detail.

Nico let Raph pull her into a hug again, but she didn't hug him back this time. She curled her arms between them, folded across her chest the way you would a corpse's, clenching her hands into fists to set them as a barrier.

Then she let herself cry. She probably wasn't going to get many more chances to do that.

She wanted to go home.

"C'mon. Come with me," he said and then he lead her away, an arm held protectively tight around her shoulders.

There were plenty of places in this dump to hide. It was just as complicated and fill of nooks and crannies and hidden locations the sewers of New York. He knew of one place, a little unlocked storeroom he'd found nosing around that looked like people never went inside, judging from the dust. He figured that would be nice and secluded and away from all the creeps and crazy people.

When he got her in there, light from outside dimly filtered through the grimy windows. He found a stack of unused blankets and took off the one on the top and threw it to the side, since it was covered in dust. Underneath, the other blankets were cleaner.

He sat her down there and sat next to her, holding her close.

"It doesn't have to be like that," he whispered. It didn't have to be all... him taking advantage. "It can just be like this."

With that, he pressed little kisses to her face, catching each of the tears, then buried his face in her neck and held her. Right now they were sitting up but she could easily shove him over if she wanted to cuddle lying down.

"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you."

Nico let him lead her without protest, curled in on herself like a dead pill bug. She stood there, crying silently, while he selected blankets and steered her to sit down against the wall, wrapped up in his arms. His words washed over her when he spoke and they passed over her ears like water. There was no urgency to them, no warning, so she let them be soothing without making an effort to assign them further meaning.

When he kissed her cheeks though, she turned her face away, closing her eyes -- if he didn't want her to kiss him, she didn't want his pity kisses.

She just...while she had the chance, she was just going to trust that she could sit here and cry and that he'd deal with anyone or anything that tried to bother them. That they were far enough away from the stupid people of this world that she didn't have to keep up a front. She might be too weak to push him away like she should, but she just couldn't dredge up the effort to fight him enough to prove that she was strong.

And maybe if she cried long enough, she could stop caring. About anything.

It was okay, her not wanting the kisses. He understood perfectly why she wouldn't want any from him, especially at a time like this. So he didn't do it again, but he still held her, let cry as long as she needed it.

He'd sit there all day if he had to.

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

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