tevinteriscoming | week 13; midday monday; rec room

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week 13; midday monday; rec room

[Well, Sunday he's in no condition to go retrieve the ring from where he'd left it (dropped it down the elevator shaft). Monday morning he's not significantly in better condition, but he does want to try to see Adrien. Not that he thinks Adrien will want to see him, or that he'll have anything worthwhile to say, but the ring is a decent enough pretense to try. He goes to fetch it and then goes looking for him, eventually finding him in the rec room.]

May I have a moment?

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[Adrien is tense and wary when he looks at Dorian. he hadn't really wanted to come out in the first place-- hadn't wanted to see anyone-- but everyone else deserved the right to...

say whatever. to him. at him.

he hums vaguely in answer and stands up to meet Dorian near the entrance, though he throws a quick glance back at Dave to... reassure both of them. He's got his arms (all one and a half of them) clasped behind his back, but he's not meeting Dorian's eyes.]

...What is it?

[his voice is quiet, but that might be all the screaming/crying from yesterday. maybe.]

[He's struck by the surprising urge to just. Hug him. Isn't that a strange impulse to have towards someone. It seems a little dramatic and quite impolite, and he dismisses the urge in favor of fiddling with his hands.]

I've brought you your ring, if you should like it back. I'm sure that your, your Plagg will be relieved to return to your side.

[Adrien actually flinches at the suggestion, taking a step back.]

No. No, no, I-- [there's mild panic there but he takes a breath to stop himself because Dorian wouldn't understand, but the look he gives him probably seems a little unhinged] I don't. [he can't let Dorian keep it, he knows that, but he doesn't want it-- doesn't deserve it-- and it's hard for him to articulate that] ... Maybe if you put it in a box? I can't. I can't wear it.

[Yikes. Okay. He honestly thought Adrien would at least be relieved to have it back, but he can adjust easily, and keep his tone mild.]

Of course. I'll put it somewhere for safekeeping, then. If you have need of it in the future, you have only to ask, and if not, it will be well kept.

[that relaxes him immediately and he droops, heaving out a sigh]

...Okay. Okay. Thank you. [it'll be safe and he can-- someone can-- he doesn't know what he'll do with it. but something. he adds after a beat:] Sorry. [for freaking out? for hurting him? adrien's finding that the easiest word out of him is apologies, so he's not even sure. kinda sorry for his own existence, but that's. not relevant to Dorian. still, while he's here and talking about these things:] Ma... [but he can't say her name.] Her earrings. Did someone... grab them?

[No, he can understand. He's clearly traumatized, and the ring is agitating it, so he'll act as though he isn't concerned and sad about Adrien's insistence he not have it.]

No need for apologies, it's no trouble at all. [Though he doesn't actually think Adrien was apologizing for the trouble.] They're also safe. I'll see that they're both well kept, hmm?

[he nods along, because that's good? he assumes. he doesn't know what's happening with the dead or this ship or anything, but the miraculous being kept safe is important. clearly him having one was a mistake, but that's. he can rectify that one.]

Thank you. [he even tries to smile and it's. well. that's just depressing. stop that. stop that right now.] Um. Was that it?

[he doesn't know why he's asking, since he doesn't even know which answer he'd like. he can talk to dave because he can't leave dave, but talking to everyone else seems like forcing his presence on them, and he doesn't even want to talk in the first place. but it's not like dorian had agreed with the things the others were saying in the trial, either, so maybe dorian minds less?

maybe he's just being whiny and clingy again.]

[If anything's good come out of the mess of his circumstances on the ship, it's this: weeks ago he would have taken 'was that it' as a clear indication that he's worn out his welcome, and ought to go. But - he knows this feeling. The awkwardness of being stuck on a ship with people and not knowing which of them would tolerate his presence. Being happy for a little friendliness or kindness even if he didn't particularly feel the need to talk.]

That's all I'll force you to endure. [Gently teasing self-deprecation.] I'm sure I've interrupted your games. I am feeling rather old, Adrien, and one would rather be more than tolerated by teenagers, but then you've always been so damnably considerate of my meddling. [Which is a roundabout way to say he'll leave if you want, but only out of politeness; he isn't avoiding him.] Still, forgive me if it's out of bounds, but you know that I'm terribly glad that you're - [All right? All left? Not erupting into half and skewering us with tentacles? Doing swell? Yeesh.] - still with us.

[for a second he's grateful that Dorian seems to be okay with him, even if Adrien isn't okay with himself, but the last part is too much. He doesn't know how to answer it. There's a reflexive, self-depreciating line on the tip of this tongue ("that makes two of you"), but he doesn't think anyone in the room would take it as a joke. He doesn't want to hear reassurances of otherwise, either. He doesn't even know if he believes Dorian when he says it.]

Why? [is what comes out instead, but he squares his jaw and shakes his head, because it's-- rhetorical? he doesn't want an answer, so that's as rhetorical as it gets?] I'm not any help. I've never been... The whole time, it was in me. You'd all have been safer if I'd-- ["you'd be better off gone". he bites himself off because he's not saying this right. he has knowledge no one else has that makes what he's saying sensible, but he doesn't want to share it yet, can barely deal with knowing it. he switches gears, abrupt and tense:] Is everyone else alright? I didn't check.

That's not the case - [They wouldn't be better off without Adrien. He wouldn't be better off without Adrien. He doesn't really know what would have become of him without Adrien and Marinette here but he doesn't know how to explain that. And honestly, protecting the feelings of an accomplice to a murder likely isn't the sort of validation Adrien needs anyway. Instead he just. Awkwardly claps him on the shoulder once before pulling away; that's about the limits of physical comfort he knows how to give someone.] No, forgive me. I've never been good at knowing what to say. When I came to learn my friend Felix had the blight, if I recall, I told him at least he had the perfect excuse to decline party invitations. Though my floundering here is if anything worse. How is, instead, that you've the perfect excuse to ignore social graces and tell aggravating well-wishers what to do with unhelpful platitudes. I find that it does help, you know, to embrace gracelessness now and again.

But yes, everyone is all right. [Minus, well, Marinette.] Nothing that can't be patched up.

[he's tense and surprised at the physical contact, however brief it is. he regrets opening his mouth a little, because he hadn't wanted comfort, but he also can't understand dorian's point at all. from his point of view, people were already discussing how he should be dead back in the trial, so why would there be well-wishers now, after everything?]

That's... I don't think that'll come up. [but he relaxes at the news that everyone is fine; the extent of the damage he'd caused hadn't exactly been a mystery, but whether or not they could heal from it definitely had been.] But that's good. She... she stopped me in time. [again]

[Him. He's the aggravating well-wisher he's speaking of. He's telling Adrien he's allowed to tell him off.]

She was magnificent. [He doesn't know whether it's better to upset Adrien by not acknowledging her when he brings her up, or to upset him by acknowledging her. But she was. She was clever, she found a way to save all of them. She shouldn't have had to do it on her own.] We'll see them again. I know that doesn't make it better, but. [It helps? Maybe?]

... Even if we do, [and it's if because adrien's optimism is-- gone, honestly, and it's hard to believe in any of that for sure] that won't make things right. We can't... erase what happened.

[later they will find out they can go into their cradles and absolutely erase what happened but we didn't pick that end so it's not ironic]

No, we can't. [Gently, though.] I wouldn't insult you by pretending otherwise. [Even if they can bring back Marinette, they can't undo everyone's pain. Especially his pain.] Everything still happened, and you still lived through that dreadful experience. But what happens in the future may not be so terrible as it now seems.

[he looks sceptically amused, for a second. an ... improvement?] I never took you as the optimistic type. [he looks down after that, a sudden doubt on whether that was uncalled for he wouldn't have had even a few days ago. he adds, quiet:] I don't... I don't think I can think about the future, right now. Any kind of it.

[it's a hard thing to admit because of what it implies, but he doesn't want Dorian to think he's dismissing what he's saying out of hand]

That's all right. You don't need to. [No, he gets it. He doesn't expect Adrien to perk up just from his words.] It's hardly the same, but I've had my share of moments where it seemed as though nothing could ever be made right or that no future could be, well, bearable. [Never this, nothing like this, but he did spend most of his youth engaged in only semi-deliberate efforts to destroy himself, and when he'd clawed out of it the first time, it all came crashing back down again.]

It isn't always so impossible as it first seems. If that makes me a dreadful optimist, so be it. You needn't be one, but at the least, in the now, try not to let it swallow you, if you can. You're brave, and you have a good heart. I should hate to see that taken from you.

[Awkward now, though. Or, more awkward than he already was.]

At any rate. If you should need anything from me, don't worry about troubling me.

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week 13; midday monday; rec room

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