you go ahead and dance, I'll just sit (August stuff)

[fruitknife]

🧙 WHO: Shinji and whoever!
⚔️️ WHAT: Don't Treep quest, SEES House shenanigans, some asshole completely forgetting his own birthday is a thing.
🕒 WHEN: early August
🗺️ WHERE: farms, SEES House
⚠️ WARNINGS: none anticipated


A. Don't Treep, Man (OTA)

Shinji can't, as a general rule, be bothered with the quest board. He's tired, okay. He was tired before he got here. Frankly, he was burnt out before he got to Liminal Space.

(He'd say the animal-parts curse didn't stick on him because he has built-in magic resistance, but he's honestly not sure if that's the case anymore or not.)

But. Tell him there's danger of a food shortage and he will do anything in his power to fucking well make sure there's not one. He's done his time with little to no food available, and he's not about to let it happen again.

He's on-site more than once in the time it takes to get the farms back to rights. Sometimes he's helping with the heavy lifting; others, he just shows up with some food for the people doing the heavy lifting to eat.

B. SEES House (closed to people who'd plausibly be there)

It's kinda weird, actually living with people from the dorm again.

In Liminal Space, Minako had her own room, Shinji didn't even live in his since Helena gave him a bed first and it would've been weird, and no one else from SEES overlapped with him. Not long enough to actually need a place to stay, anyway.

It's a good weird, but it's still kinda weird. In any case, it's no one he minds bothering him, if he's there to be bothered, and if nothing else he's bound to make sure everyone has dinner.

C. Some dipshit completely forgot about his birthday (closed to close CR)

It's August. Shinji's birthday is the 11th.

He hasn't thought about that fact at all, between his abysmal self-esteem and Liminal Space's general lack of... well, coherent time, really. Between-jaunts time was guesswork at best, and the jaunts themselves tended to have very weird calendars if they weren't on alternate Earths (and sometimes if they were).

If anything's gonna happen, it'll be up to his friends and acquaintances to make it happen. Mitsuru might be the only person here who even knows when Shinji's birthday is.

(OOC: Basically, a place for a partything to be plopped, if a partything is to be had. ICly, Shinji won't be remotely bothered if there isn't one; OOC, I won't either, since I only thought of this myself on Sunday. XD)

D. Kotone's the Wild Card here-- I mean, what?

[None of those appeal? Feel free to hit me with something else! Shinji works in the kitchen at the karaoke bar, and can occasionally be found Just Chillin' in other places.]

Comments

[tempredmental]

Keith had done that a few times in his life already, and agreed... not a fun time.

He nodded.

"I'm Keith," he said. He leaned against a bit of repaired fence to rest a little as he ate. "It's good to meet you. He's talked about you a few times."

[fruitknife]

"He has?" If anything, Shinji sounds kind of baffled by the idea that someone would be talking about him in a good way.

"Well, I guess there's no one else around here who really gets Liminal Space's bullshit. But... he's a good guy."

Shinji doesn't make friends easily. He never has, and the same factors that make it hard to believe people like him haven't helped any. But Shiro's worked his way into that little circle.

[tempredmental]

Keith looked amused for a second. "Heh, yeah. He has." He chuckled. "Shiro likes to talk about his friends." But, yeah... he could understand the whole 'shared experience' bond. He had a few of those with people he wouldn't normally have been friends with, too.

"It's good that he found people there," Keith added quietly. "I'm glad he wasn't alone." It was clear that Keith had deep feelings for Shiro with that statement, a concern that his dearest friend would be isolated and alone that bugged Keith because he knew that Shiro had been in that place for four years. "Thanks... for helping him out."

[fruitknife]

"Guess he does." But frankly, Shinji's self-esteem hasn't been on his side in several years, so it's still weird.

"Somebody had to tell him to not pretend he was okay all the damn time. Helped that I had a dog who could sit on him and keep him there for a while, too, but Koro-chan was already here with Ken before I got here."

[tempredmental]

Keith smiled a bit at that.

"Yeah." He looked down at the remains of his snack for a moment. "He does do that." He sighed. "He's been doing that a long time." For Keith, it had been since the day they met, to be honest. Keith had to find out about Shiro's illness by accidentally overhearing a private conversation between him and Adam before the Kerberos mission, and then literally demand it out of him by yelling at him and reminding him that he wasn't exactly a normal thirteen-year-old when it came to what kind of news he could handle. Letting people know there was a chance he might not be okay was definitely not something Shiro did often.

"He's always so worried about everyone else," he continued. "He doesn't want them to worry about him on top of anything else they might have going on." He took the last bite of his food, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. "Dogs help, though. He likes dogs." He chuckled at the idea of a dog sitting on Shiro to keep him down. "I told him that, if he has a rough night, he can always ask me to borrow Kosmo."

[fruitknife]

"For some reason, that doesn't exactly stop people from worrying." Shinji doesn't get that part himself, but he also doesn't understand pretending to be okay. He hasn't been on the same page as 'okay' since the orphanage fire.

(He might've finally worked back into the same book as 'okay,' which is a weird thought, really.)

"Could probably still get Koro-chan to sit on him, if it comes to it. Smartest damn dog I ever met. He'd go for it."

[tempredmental]

Keith shook his head. "No... no, it doesn't."

But he did laugh at the dog idea. "Kosmo would help," he said, nodding to the blue wolf who was currently rolling around in the grass. So majestic... "Between the two of them, we could probably get him to sit still for quite a while." Keith did kind of want to meet this 'Koro-chan' now, though. He sounded like a good dog.

[fruitknife]

Shinji snorts. "Goin' off his size alone, it'd at least make escaping harder. Might wanna wait until he gets the arm situation figured out - again - and can pet 'em both at once, though."

[tempredmental]

Keith gave a weak half-chuckle before looking down, his expression almost guilty.

"Yeah... that." He sighed. Though, Shinji's words caught his attention. "What do you mean, 'again'?"

[fruitknife]

"Some people made him a new one in Liminal Space, when he turned up with the first prosthetic gone. Dunno why it didn't come here with him." And if someone here has in fact re-handled it (ha), well, Shinji mostly interacts with people via text.

(It's kinda nice having his head to himself again. Weird, after so long, but nice not having the whole damn city shouting about shit.)

[tempredmental]

"Oh..." Keith swallowed. "That was really kind of them." Again, nice to know that people had been taking care of Shiro in that weird place... especially since it was because of Keith he'd been missing the prosthetic at that point anyway. Ahem. Moving on.

"Hopefully, they can figure out something here, too." Keith stared down at his hands, going awfully quiet for a moment.

[fruitknife]

"They probably can. That or he can buy it back or something."

Shinji's not sure what Keith's getting all guilty for - but that's definitely a guilty quiet; he'd know. Not like he personally cut Shiro's arm off or anything, right?

[tempredmental]

Ha... haha... Oh, Shinji. If Keith only knew what he was thinking. But that statement did get his attention, and stared for a second.

"Buy... it back...?" Wait... whaaaat? "How? From who? Could someone buy it for him?" Keith might be a little overeager to make up for not finding a different way to end that fight...

[fruitknife]

"Those trader people get stuff from people's home worlds. Dunno if they'd let you do it for him, though. But I don't see why gettin' something from Liminal Space would be any different."

Shiro why are you still running around armless when you literally have the option not to. Seriously. Shinji's just glad he didn't have to buy back his own good health, especially since he would've had to deal with fucking pneumonia or something first.

"Why're you so worked up about it, anyway?"

[tempredmental]

"I... I guess. I know there are a few things that you can't get for someone else from them." Keith sighed a little, almost disappointed. But Shinji's question caught him off guard and he clenched his fists.

"What do you mean? I'm not..." His voice trailed off. Yes. Yes, he was. Who was he kidding? He took a breath, looking down. "I'm part of the reason he doesn't have it," he said quietly. "I had to cut off the first prosthetic because he was being mind controlled through it, and I couldn't think of any other way to stop it." He almost rubbed the scar on his face, but shifted his hand at the last second to rub the back of his neck instead, like he was self-conscious.

[fruitknife]

...ah. One of those kind of things. "You actually talked to him about it?"

[tempredmental]

"That depends on what you mean by 'talk'," Keith said. "We talked a bit about it back home, but Shiro here... he's not from the same point in time as me. I don't know if he talked to me about it, yet." Timelines! Fun!

[fruitknife]

"And... you plan to find that out without talkin' to him how, exactly?" The 'dumbass' is heavily implied. "Pretty sure he'd rather be down an arm than mind controlled."

Odds are high it's a bit hypocritical of Shinji to say this, if this conversation is happening before his birthday. But that's also slightly different - he didn't have a chance to say much of anything about it to Ken back in Iwatodai, and it's also very obvious when someone in SEES has made it past the beginning of October 2009.

(There's a little variation, sure, but the basic shape of it's the same.)

[tempredmental]

"Well, unless there was a version of me in liminal space, too, at some point, I get the impression that he didn't, since our memories from home line up until the point shortly after that fight, and I know everything that happened after that up until the point in time I'm from..."

Keith sighed heavily.

"But... I mean... yeah. And, either way, I already know what he's going to tell me." Keith and Shiro were a lot alike in some ways.

[fruitknife]

"Even if there was, you specifically haven't talked to him specifically." There's stuff he talked to Minako about that he probably won't be telling Kotone any time soon.

(Not least because Kotone's still working on that whole 'do I really have to Be Okay for everyone else' thing.)

"So stop beatin' yourself up over it and clear the air. Don't be me."

[tempredmental]

Keith considered the words, then gave Shinji a curious look in regards to that last bit.

"Don't be you, huh?" Okay... Keith was more than happy to flip this conversation away from himself, and he went for it to see if Shinji would go along with it. "That sounds like it has something of a story."

[fruitknife]

"All beatin' myself up for shit ever got me was shot. Don't be me."

You sure you still want to know more?

[tempredmental]

Honestly... yes?! Keith blinked, visibly concerned.

"I doubt that'll be the case here," he said. "What the heck happened?"

[fruitknife]

"Probably not. My point stands, though." Shinji's not sure how much of the clusterfuck could have been avoided if he'd tried to talk to Ken sooner, but... well.

He's quiet for a long, long while before he actually answers. "An accident. But Ken's mom still ended up dead and it was still my fault. By the time he was ready to give me hell about it, I would've let him, but someone else interrupted."

[tempredmental]

"Mm." Keith frowned, looking down a bit. Another case of 'not your fault but taking the blame'... Okay. So, it made sense then. He nodded. "Does it make me sound like a hypocrite if I say that an accident isn't something to beat yourself up over?"