[Closed] watch your back a little harder

[forhispeople]

Characters: Ling Yao and Takuto Tsunashi
Location: the roof of Creeping Crypts
Rating: PG
Time: Sunset, Feb. 8.
Description: After coming back from the Grand Canyon mission, Ling has been hiding out to train harder, and avoiding people. Takuto seeks him out for a much-needed talk.



The bizarre sun is setting over Death City, and on the roof of his high-rise apartment building, Ling Yao is going through a particularly advanced series of sword forms. His shirt is off, currently being used to tie the doorknob to the roof closed in a clever knot-- he doesn't want anyone to find him here. Not after the Black Blood. Not after the Witch caves. Kenshin, Rhode, Keroro, Takuto, Ran Fan. They'd all turned against him in different ways. How easy had it been for them to be turned? How easy might it be again?

Perhaps that's why suddenly, Ling who has put in the bare minimum effort at Morning Training is practicing skills he hasn't drilled in since living in Xing. He's grown frustrated with his lack of jump height here in this world, and after all of the events of the past Witch Attack, he's been pushing himself to the absolute brink, sweat streaming from him, palms and knees raw, and his eyes empty with his ferocity. His Watch-issued dao sword glints in the crimson and gold colors of the sunset, as he jumps about with precision, attacking and defending against shadows with the faces of anybody he knows.

Because he's seen it, any one of them could be the one who tries to end his life. And if that happens, how many of the Xingese heirs to the emperor's throne plan to rule justly? How many would right the wrongs of his nation? If his sister Mei Chang were to get the throne, she'd do well-- but she's from a small clan with poor standing in political matters. She'd be overturned without his pulling the strings to secure support with his clan's power.

It's these thoughts and others that are streaming in and out of his consciousness as he attacks and attacks again, light-as-a-feather twisting in the air as he jumps, flipping and rolling across the pavement, shouting roughly with his hardest attacks. His voice has grown hoarse from all of the Xingese ki-ai he's putting into it.

Comments

wow, just remembered Ling is not wearing a shirt..... oh ling-san, oh~

[tauborn]

He nods woodenly, his forehead pressing against the other boy. "It seemed like most people... they just seemed kind of empty afterwards...." He drowns in his misery a little before he can muster the strength to continue. "It wasn't like that... f-for me."

Feeling entirely horrified and nauseous again, he weakly tries to push himself away from Ling. There's nothing in him to throw up, anyway, so at best he can just hunch over the rooftop and gag and try to catch his breath. Maybe it's the evil inside him that he keeps trying to get rid of. But it's not going anywhere.

"I was cruel, and I liked it. Do you... d-do you have any idea what that's like?" He grits his teeth, waiting for another wave of nausea to pass. "I've... I've never been good at coping with things and now... I can't do it. I-I hate it and I hate me."

;D

[forhispeople]

Ling tried patting Takuto's back. "I do, a bit. I've killed in self-defense and... at times, caught myself enjoying it," he admitted. "I think that that temptation is inside everybody. It's only because of our better judgement that we're able to stop ourselves." He modded to Takuto. "From what I'm hearing, the witches took that better judgement from you, and all you had left was the dark part of yourself. It's no wonder that you did what you did, really.

Ling let that sink in, then he added, "But I ask you, did you succeed in killing or raping anyone?"

[tauborn]

He stills a little at Ling's confession. It feels like the other boy is always surprising him. But... it's not the kind of confession he ever wants to hear, because it's just confirming that everyone is horrible on the inside, that rather than humanity being good with dashes of bad mixed in, humanity is evil at the core, draped with curtains of false good.

It's no wonder he did what he did. It certainly had come as a shock to him, though.

He exhales slowly, and then shakes his head because he still can't quite catch his breath to speak. He didn't actually kill anyone or rape anyone--though for the latter it was really the witches that had stopped him from doing so.

[forhispeople]

"In my country we talk about people being like a yin and yang," Ling explained. He grabbed a pebble and scratched out a yin-yang symbol onto the roof's concrete. "It's a symbol of half white, half black, that intertwine with each other. It means that there's light and dark inside every person. Those pieces are all you. They hold each other in place, so to speak. A person who was completely perfectly good and righteous would never be able to forgive anybody! They'd never be able to understand what it was like to have made a mistake. They would simply insist that their way was right all the time, and never compromise."

"But imagine a person who was all darkness. They'd never be able to love anybody, they'd never treat anyone with selflessness or gentleness. So if you take one of those two away-- in the case with the Witches, perhaps they took the light away-- all that was left for a time was the dark part."

"Does that make any sense?" Ling asked, pausing to pat Takuto's back. "Because there's somewhere I'm going with this."

[tauborn]

He nods a little, still hiccuping and taking uneven breaths. Ling's words sound logical... but it still seems like a person that was perfectly good and righteous would be able to forgive people--that's part of what it means to be good.

But he understands what Ling is trying to say: there is good and evil inside everyone. Aion had told him the same thing in the clinic. Takuto had always assumed the good in people--even set out to prove it in some cases--and had turned a blind eye to the evil, especially his own. There had always supposed to be a reason why people did bad things--they were lonely or treated unfairly or thought that what they were doing was for the best--and he'd believed that everyone was in fact, inherently good. So it's... depressing... to realize he'd been wrong. Exactly wrong, even.

[forhispeople]

"Okay. So, the important thing to remember is here." Ling taps his drawing on the ground. "These dots. There's a little darkness in the light and a little light in the darkness. That means that nothing's ever absolute. You can change! And Takuto, even if someone took your light away forcibly, there was still some good left in you. That little piece of you made sure that you didn't kill or rape anyone, no matter what those Witches did." Ling squeezed the other boy's shoulder firmly and gives him a determined look, jaw set. "I'm sure of it. You had the time and the ability to, but it didn't happen. Don't deny it."

[tauborn]

For a brief moment, he lifts his eyes to meet Ling's... but then he can't. The other boy is so confident, so certain that Takuto wasn't entirely a monster... and a part of him really wants to latch onto that belief.

But he can't. It's a lie. He stares at the drawing on the ground, watching it become a blurry as his eyes filled with more tears. "It was the Witches that prevented me, Ling. It wasn't that there was anything good. It was that the Witches told me to do something else." At least for the raping part. Otherwise... Chrono, definitely. Orihime... probably. He feels a stab of guilt, but he's too exhausted to even feel nauseous. As for the killing.... "You're alive because you're a good fighter."

[forhispeople]

"I don't think so," Ling says with a shake of his head. "You could have sliced my neck just a bit deeper. Maybe an eight of an inch, and I wouldn't be here. But you didn't. Something made you hold back, and something else made you run off instead of finishing the job."

[tauborn]

He wants to curl up on the rooftop again, just lie there like a dead person with his cheek against the concrete, even though it's definitely getting dark and the air is cooling. But even doing that would take a lot of effort, so he just hunches forward, his voice coming out hollow.

"I was aiming to kill you. And I ran away because I thought I was losing. It wasn't fun anymore."

[forhispeople]

Ling considers this, eyes squinched shut and arms folded. "Okay," he says, slowly and cautiously. He doesn't seem so very upset about it as one might think. "Are you sorry?"

[tauborn]

"Yes."

In that single word is all of the guilt and horror of what he's done to Ling. He says it like he's begging to be believed.

[forhispeople]

Ling shrugged, and grasped Takuto's hand and wrist, with both hands. "Then I forgive you. That's that," the prince announced. "It's good enough for me."

Then he pounced, grabbed the other boy in a hug and began tickling the hell out of him for a reason he wasn't sure he could name.

[tauborn]

He has no words to describe what that simple gesture means to him. Ling is... Ling still... likes him, and is going to let him get off that easy.... Even when they both know that it'd be fair for him to throw Takuto off the edge of the building.

A different kind of tears start to prick the corners of his eyes and he presses his lips together because Ling is too nice... he's just....

...throwing him down and tickling him, apparently. Which, under normal circumstances would be a great idea, but Takuto is still feeling kind of sick and worn out and he does happen to have injuries that kept him in the clinic for two days.

"Ah-ha! O-oooww!" He gives in terribly quickly, going limp.

[forhispeople]

Ling jerks back quickly, startled by Takuto's yelp. "Aiya! Yeah, so-sorry," he blurts out, stopping his attack. "You're in no shape to be roughhousing. Sorry, Takuto... I kind of forgot for a second...."

Ling's lifting the other boy's shirt now, trying to see what kind of injuries he has. "Where does it hurt? Show me."

[tauborn]

It's mostly just a few slight bruises on his ribs except for the gunshot wound in his shoulder--that's the reason he's wearing a sling on his left arm, not because he's got any kind of ailment with the limb itself. But it's covered in gauze and wrapped tightly in medical tape. Of course, there's always that old cross-shaped scar he got from crashing Natsuo's glider.

But he's suddenly not at all focused on Ling's words because... Ling is lifting his shirt, inspecting him. He remains limp on the ground, his face turning ashen as he remembers, quite suddenly, how he had wanted to push Ling's tired and bruised body to the ground, pull his shirt away, untie his long black hair.... B-but Ling had said he was forgiven... but it had been so quick, far too easy... is this...? What is this? Whatever it is, it's too confusing and too much for him to handle right now. He can't take these sudden ups and sudden downs. He'll just... try to be unconscious... not thinking or feeling....

[forhispeople]

"Oi. That shoulder looks nasty," Ling said with sympathy, tucking the shirt back down where it's supposed to be and placing his hands on his lap. "What happened to it? I don't want to pull on it and hurt you even more. Are you taking anything for it? Did you ice it?"

[tauborn]

He's aware that Ling is still talking. After what seems like a very long time, there's silence. And after a long pause, Takuto cracks open one eye. He's not sure he was following along with all those questions, but he takes a deep breath to answer regardless....

"It's from a bullet." He'd said something about ice, too, but Takuto is too tired to try to figure it out. And if he just focuses on the feeling of the concrete underneath him and how exhausted he is, it's much easier to avoid thinking of what exactly happened when he took the bullet to the shoulder.

[forhispeople]

Ling registers that Takuto is acting weird. "Maybe everything's kind of getting to you," he surmises. "Let's just... let's go inside, okay? I've had enough for one day, so... come back to my room with me. You don't look so good-- understandably-- and I'd rather keep an eye on you, Takuto."

[tauborn]

He's not so much swimming in a sea of confusion and exhaustion as he is drowning in it. Now Ling wants him to go back to his room.... Not just someplace other than a rooftop, but his room. Or maybe it's his room. With him.

He's way past the point of resisting anything Ling has to say or do. Though, that's probably because his mind is following the rest of his body and going limp. It's a little like he's some kind of overloaded computer, freezing or perhaps crashing programs. Ling can do whatever he likes. Takuto doesn't care--he's not exactly listening, though he's not exactly not listening, either. Likewise, he's not resisting, but he's not actually making any movements either.

A large part of him feels like just lying there and probably crying, despite the dropping temperatures.

"...What?"

[forhispeople]

Increasingly worried now, Ling tries to help Takuto up. He helps him scoot a few feet over to the stairwell housing's wall, to lean back against it for back support. "Or... would you rather go see a doctor? You don't seem lucid."

[tauborn]

He allows Ling to move him--even trying to be helpful with that by pushing himself against the wall with his good arm. But it still feels like all of his strength has been sapped from his body.

He shakes his head slowly, because he's been out of the clinic for a full day now--almost two--and he doesn't want to go back. Firecracker will miss him. And even though he is sliding backwards through a non-existent recovery, returning to the clinic will only make it that much more painfully obvious.

"...tired." It was supposed to be a real sentence, but the first part didn't come out. Whatever. The point is made. He leans against Ling.

[forhispeople]

"Okay," Ling says softly. "All right, I'll just take you to my place, and... you can rest safely." He wraps Takuto's arm around his neck and lifts the other boy, attempting to be careful of his wounds. He shoulders the stairwell door open and once they're through, the heavy metal portal closes behind them with a loud finality.

are you wanting to close out this log?

[tauborn]

He limps along, trying not to lean too heavily on Ling but not doing a terribly good job at it. It doesn't matter at all what the other boy is saying because the tone of his voice is gentle enough.