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[pancakeboy]

[Text him! Or do whatever, I'm not the police, and neither is he, thank God. Just specify if you want the more-fun-but-less-stable pre-11/20 guy or the grumpy third semester/postcanon guy. Pancake only for VRDR guys please, he's not third semester yet]

Comments

[fogboundcrow]

We're trying our best to help him feel included. I think he's simply used to being self-reliant...

[Which prompts a little frown and a sigh.]

I think he just needs time to adjust to such a different living situation. The vampire Akira has been helpful too, though.

[pancakeboy]

Yes, he seems... [His mouth twists, and he turns away, opening a lower cupboard to peep inside. Pots and pans, no plumbing; he closes it again.] Quite normal, apart from the teeth. And the indefinable aura of power.

[The what? Akechi, the what?!]

I wonder if he is self-reliant, or if he's just afraid. [Second cupboard, under the sink. There's some plumbing here; he crouches down to have a look.]

[fogboundcrow]

...I suppose he would be strong? If he's a vampire. Moth did seem apprehensive about showing violence, too.

[Curious, Raven follows along, peeking down at the cupboard, too.]

But we just have to be patient.

[pancakeboy]

Like taming an animal. [He mutters it. Wow, that sure is a familiar-looking assortment of U-bends, pipes, connectors and switches. He has almost no idea what any of it is for.]

This can't be so difficult.

[And he reaches gingerly over the assortment of cleaning fluids and rags, to reveal the copper pipes.]

[fogboundcrow]

Um... What exactly are you doing with our plumbing?

[Magpie... Magpie, he's worried about you, buddy. Look at those wide eyes staring down.]

[pancakeboy]

I'm looking. I won't patronise you by saying no harm ever came from looking, but that's all.

[Yeah, because if he hadn't "just looked"... well, he'd be an ordinary high school boy, probably. Or in a psychiatric ward, or prison. He coaxes some bottles apart, revealing what look like turn switches at the far back on the pipes, one red and one blue. The pipe ends abruptly just past them, as if it was severed.]

[fogboundcrow]

Is this because we're still lacking a dishwasher?

[It's... interesting, he supposes, to see the jungle of pipes, but also daunting. Very daunting.]

[pancakeboy]

You see? You understand. I'm sure you'd be glad to be relieved from the horror of dishes.

[And he is not kidding. By the time he was Raven's age, he'd wanted to smash every dish he was made to wash through his uncle's teeth.

He touches the ends of the two copper pipes. They've been threaded, for something to screw in place.]

That's a water attachment, look. You'd need hot and cold water—[this is a wrong guess]—and power, and somewhere for it to drain. And somewhere to put the thing, of course. [He glances over the cupboard door, to the cabinet with the microwave on top. It looks eminently movable.]

[fogboundcrow]

...I feel as though we'd need to follow the directions to the letter. I'm not opposed, and I doubt Crow is either, but this is the sort of activity that may be better saved for when we can consult the entire household.

[He folds his arms, watching still. It's probably a non-issue, but still...]

[pancakeboy]

I'm not going to go to June's and come back with a dishwasher on my shoulder. I'm just taking a look.

[He looks around some more, but can't see anything that even looks like a drain.]

The U-bend is the waste pipe, obviously. I know that much. But there's no sign of anything that connects to it. [He's a bit frustrated; he thinks this should be obvious and easy.] So we can get water in, but we can't get it out again? This is arcane.

[fogboundcrow]

...I'll trust your judgment. It's not as though I own a plumbing handbook. I may have gotten rather far in Ultra Marco Voyage, but that's a fictitious world.

[Which it so say, it's a whole other beast. This is... decidedly more grounded.]

[pancakeboy]

Yes, and these pipes are a little small to crawl inside.

[He gives up, getting to his feet and closing the cupboard, now thoroughly distracted from Ren—or as much as he ever is. He leans back on the counter, with a very plumber-like exhausted sigh.]

Then again, this is all cognition. Perhaps it wouldn't be so strange if flocks of terrapins started swimming toward us.

[fogboundcrow]

Careful. You think about that too much, and suddenly the pipes may burst with all manner of strange creatures...

[The thought makes him chuckle. At least Magpie seems to be in better spirits now.]

So I suppose the next question is, who shall talk to Hawk? I can try, but you may be able to handle the situation better.

[pancakeboy]

I'll talk to him. [It's too quiet, too tired.] After all, you know Moth far better than I do. Someone needs to reassure him, self-sufficient or no.

[fogboundcrow]

I'll do my best. I, at the very least, know what it's like to be scared of being replaced or forgotten.

[It's taken a long time to stop that fear from dominating his every moment. It's easier now. At least with Magpie.]

And if Ren gets particularly annoying, I may sneak over to your apartment. No stories required.

[pancakeboy]

[Something inside him quivers miserably, in lonely recognition. Then he does his best to stamp on its neck and kill it, with the result that he feels even more sick and stupid. Great. He wants to reply so little that it's like his lips are glued to his teeth.]

... you can always come. [Deep breaths.] Or text. You aren't still flapping about bothering me with text messages, I hope.

[fogboundcrow]

If you want, I can tell you all the embarrassing things Crow does over texts, and you can use that as leverage to get him to...

[Hmm... To do what, though...]

Finally get a dishwasher?

[pancakeboy]

I shouldn't need leverage. He should keep on top of his own interests.

[Embarrassing things, though... that sounds promising. Or does it?]

Not that I'm going to decline, you understand, but just how embarrassing are we talking?

[fogboundcrow]

Amusing sleep habits, pictures of him in the morning, freshly out of bed, perhaps his pre-coffee behavior.

[There are certainly options. He's seen many odd things since they started living together...]

[pancakeboy]

I've seen him freshly out of bed. [Not helping with those wild rumours, Magpie. Those sleep habits, though....]

Wait a moment. Does he not have nightmares? [Because they both do, and they both know it.]

[fogboundcrow]

...I think he does. Perhaps not always, but there are certainly times where his sleep seems... restless. I've heard him cry out a few times.

[He heaves a heavy sigh.]

And sometimes I've heard him cry.

[pancakeboy]

[Akechi doesn't quite freeze, glancing up at Raven. That's... not what he expected to hear, somehow. Not what he hoped to hear, in some strange way.]

You have?

[He doesn't cry in his sleep, does he?... Surely he'd know?]

[fogboundcrow]

Sometimes.

[Is it really his place to divulge this? ...well, perhaps with Magpie, it's okay.]

I think he may be lonely. He surrounds himself with people and tries to keep busy, but that doesn't change the fact that up until today, he had very few people from his world. Just myself and that Maruki person, who has made himself scarce.

And I understand, but I think it's easier for me to cope because I haven't had the years of time he has to build connections and truly establish himself in his new life.

[pancakeboy]

[He feels a bit sour inside, but brushes it off; he doesn't want to understand.]

Yes. The downside of surrounding yourself with others, isn't it? [They all leave in the end, he does not say—though Raven must have thought it.

It's uncomfortable, to think of Crow crying. It makes him feel hollow.]

[fogboundcrow]

But I wasn't really happy alone either.

[He wilts, thinking about how much easier it is to admit it now.]

It's give and take, I suppose. But I think having another familiar face may help ground him. I certainly have moments where I feel aimless simply due to how different my experiences are.

[...]

But I'm less aimless with you.