Kanda Yû (神田ユウ) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lotusmesenpai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
overjoyed_logs2017-02-19 07:04 pm
lotusmesenpai) wrote in overjoyed_logs2017-02-19 07:04 pm
Closed(ish) | Guarding Mr. Daisy
Who: Sion, Lavi, Kanda & anyone they meet at the Summit
Where: Springhill Compound, Peace Summit
When: W6D2 - D6
Summary: Guarding Sion during the summit should be an easy warrant. Unfortunately, nothing with Sion is ever actually E A S Y.
Restrictions/Warnings: Kanda's fine command of language, as usual.
Where: Springhill Compound, Peace Summit
When: W6D2 - D6
Summary: Guarding Sion during the summit should be an easy warrant. Unfortunately, nothing with Sion is ever actually E A S Y.
Restrictions/Warnings: Kanda's fine command of language, as usual.
no subject
[ Falling back a step (just out of Lavi's reach!), Sion clasps his hands artfully behind his back, rocking back and forth precisely once upon his heels with a deliberate shift of his weight. But for all that his stance is playful, the Director's voice rings with solemn intonations, white lashes veiling over golden eyes as he speaks— ]
And how is it that you are able to say 'thank you' to me, but I am not to be allowed the same measure of courtesy?
[ No, it hasn't gone unnoticed by him, how the other man seems keen upon doing anything (and everything) to keep both himself (and others) at bay, no more than the strain to Lavi's smile has escaped his eyes. Strain, and nervous energy, giving way to... a heartbare look, Lavi's expression shifting from something practiced and structured by route to a by far more vulnerable thing.
(Do I cause you so much pain, Lavi...?) ]
You are fathomless to me, someone who can be so selfless and yet so fearful of others in turn. [ What sort of man is it who risks life and limb to protect another they would have nothing to do with, were it only their choice? A remarkable one, is the answer; a man deserving only of respect. ] You saved me, I owe you my life, and yet--...
[ There is the question which had lingered with the Director since the moment they'd met, and Lavi's gaze had drifted elsewhere, far beyond Sion himself, past the Noah, focused upon something which only the mind's eye might see. ]
Why is it that I feel you cannot bear to look at me, Lavi?
no subject
They are neither friends nor enemies. That kind of contact is something that should be limited to the familiar or the opposed, not to a man he'd prefer to keep a stranger.
(Why had he even thought to reach out? A foolish notion that goes against the poorly held doctrines of his upbringing.)
Sion's voice, like the trill of a violin tortured beneath artful hands, evokes more emotion than understanding, though he's careful to keep this buried in his expression. The face that turns to Sion is one crafted in smooth stone and polish, smile wavering there at his lips until his mouth settles into an impassive line.
Why is it that I feel you cannot bear to look at me, Lavi?
Even at this, he remains unmoved, his posture frozen as if locked in a cavalier form of stasis. Of all the questions, this is the one that sounds the most alarm within him, because this one.. he doesn't have an answer to provide.
Oh, he could claim it the man's manner or relationship to Yu, and indeed, it had been the call for his first wariness. But there's something deeper there, and he knows it, unable to sink into denial after his feats in the week past.
Sion is to him a source of emptiness where there should be fullness, a sense of loss so deep and devastating that it chokes the breath out of him if he dare pay it mind. But that makes no sense, none at all--Lavi has a memory trained for faces, even as he learns to forget his own, and he's certain he's never met or seen Sion prior to the warrant that first brought them together.
(When you can't explain something, when something hurts so potently and deeply that you feel as if your soul is splintered by it, there are few paths left to pursue. You either go mad with trying to find the phantom that's carved a hole out of you, or you... just agree not to look. Not to ask.
Push it away and eventually it'll be just a blink in the record of a well-traveled life.) ]
Maybe..
[ The informal drawl colors the word, but it's cooler than his usual tone, a brush of quiet damnation. He steps forward, but not towards Sion directly, coming up at his side to offer the bound books once more. ]
You just can't bear to look at yourself.
[ Head tilted so that the ocher fringe slides over his visible eye, Lavi offers a new shade of smile, something distant and empathetic. He's been told his gaze is like a mirror pane, reflecting back the image of others while offering nothing of himself--so this is what he lets Sion see now. Not the pain and longing Lavi can't name. A reflection of gold against green, silent judgment there for the blood his gilded boots track over Westerley's soils.
It's not fair. It's not even particularly kind. But Lavi isn't the saint Sion seems to think him, and he intends to impart that lesson swiftly to the prying Director. ]
I'll give them to Yu if you don't want them back. He saved you. Not me.
no subject
Crestfallen, the Director moves as if to say something, but then presses his lips together, deciding against it. Lavi is... terribly fragile, isn't he? At least, in this one small regard. The other man is protecting himself from (Sion) a threat which is not and will never be, and so--...
Delicately, then.
Gingerly, he reaches out to Lavi's second offering off the books, not to take, but to reinforce the sentiment which he'd voiced before: gratitude, shown by way of touch, Sion's fingers molding to the back of Lavi's hand, curling once in a gentle squeeze to secure Lavi's grasp about the parcel.
Then, playfully, with a huff and the mildest sort of admonishment: ]
Take responsibility for what you've done. [ And for the way Sion is smiling, now, melancholy and serene in turns, his hand still enveloping Lavi's own with willowed fingers and a glowing sort of warmth. ] That I am able to stand here now is thanks to only you. Regardless of whether you were acting on behalf of another's wish...
[ Kanda's wish, and the thought is sweet. Perhaps Lavi is not a saint, but he is kind, tenderhearted in his actions which protected not just one, but by extension, another: a partner held in only the utmost regard, esteemed and dear. ]
...it was your choice to make. "Lavi's will".
[ Running away and leaving something like that behind--... It's like forgetting one's own heart, isn't it? ]
Let me know what you think, after you've read them. [ His touch falling away, he looks up, knowing precisely what he might find in Lavi's gaze (judgement, dispassion, whispers of pain), and accepts it. All of it. Because truly, what else is there to do? There is profound sadness within the other man, and Sion cannot help but worry for him, Lavi who smiles through hardship and sufferance just as the Director himself is wont to do. ] And in return, I'll...
[ A soft, breezy hum, a cant of his head as though considering...! ]
Endeavor to stay out of trouble, meanwhile. I will not put you at risk because of my own inability again.
no subject
(And this too makes no sense. Lavi gives casual affection freely and without thought; he'd hug a stranger if he felt like it and not think much of it beyond the basic safety checks. But Sion's touch makes him feel cold, as if the other man's digits reach through the dense walls of rib and lung to squeeze at the humming bird heart.)
Lavi breathes out the discomfort, draws his composure and calm in the press of lashes and lids; a sanctuary formed in the darkness of closed senses, if only for a few precious seconds.
When he opens his eye again, Sion's grasp is receding from him, and fearlessly amber bores into impassive green, meeting the judgment there almost as if he thinks he deserves it.
That, more so the quiet accusation of his choices (not, he knows, an accusation for anyone else, but for one so tasked with neutrality and noninterference as he--) or gentle extension of touch, rattles his heart. Regret, sure and swift, shoots through him, racing up to his throat to bind him in temporary silence.
It's not like him to lash out like this. What has Sion truly done to warrant it? His crimes against Lavi have been the actions of phantoms, stirring the pain of a buried wound by happenstance alone.
An apology waits at his tongue, but he swallows this back. Resolves to do better. Actions are worth more than words, even to a man whose discipline deals in the currency of speech.
Instead, Lavi tips his head slightly in a nod, a voiceless acquiescence to the request. His smile is still pressed to his lips like a waning moon, but there's more light to his eye for it now.
The apology he doesn't say is conveyed instead in the slightest shift of shoulder, nudging against Sion's arm as he moves past. ]
Good. I don't want Yu to lose another precious person. [ He says over his shoulder, sliding away like a shadow from the glare of Sion's sun. ] At least someone should stay a constant for him.
[ It won't be Lavi. ]
no subject
[ Lavi, who had been at Kanda's side during all the years Sion had missed. Lavi, who Kanda had been more than (and is still) habitually aware of as they ventured to Leith, the tenor of Lavi's voice catching Kanda's ears from afar even as he exchanged words (heartfelt, long overdue) with the Director himself. Lavi, who--... Kanda seemed uncertain of in the moments after Sion had said it would do you well to remember that you are not alone in play, responding in vague: so it seems, at least for now.
Kanda's sentiment, it is something which the Director comes to understand for himself in the here and now where Lavi nudges a shoulder against his own in a gesture, however evocative of apology, is still a brushing past; a ceding of ground which leaves Sion to a moment of quiet where he flexes the hand which once enveloped Lavi's own, fingers curling as he wonders at the sense of loss (nameless, fathomless) the other man had hidden behind the half-lit crescent of his smile. ]
Are you so transient— [ Always leaving, always drifting away, melding away into the shadows cast by others as though they could hope to cloak him, Lavi who--... ] —that you do not matter?
[ …had made the choice to stand by someone (a partner), to save someone (a stranger), and to smile in a way which made Sion's heart break—not on account of how wane the expression is, but because of how bright it had the potential to be.
(Moonlight is proof that light and darkness are forever intertwined; that from the pitch of shadow there may yet exist a gentle-strong glow which bathes everything, watching over the whole of humanity from afar, whether or not they are truly aware.)
A huff, almost annoyed, but much too gentle to be anything but good-natured: ] Don't sell yourself short, Lavi.
[ Here, the Director glances back over his shoulder, a slender brow lofted high as he wonders if a person like himself could ever truly be called something like 'precious'... ]
You're needed right where you are.
[ By Kanda, and by Sion, too. ]
/end like two weeks later, also couldn't resist
(Keep moving, keep walking away--everyone around you will die away but the Bookmen live on.)
Lavi stops, though he doesn't turn his head back. Lets the words and the small puff of air brush over him in distant waves, their impact felt but their gravity mitigated by far celestial bodies. His shoulders square, denying the temptation to bow in defeat or weariness.
In the privacy of a turned back, Lavi pulls the bound books a little closer to his chest. His smile melts away, expression not quite cold but passively resigned. ]
...So it seems.
[ Somber, soft, the lilt of mourning there.
Lavi takes another step, away, free hand waving idly at his side. ]
At least for now.