SEMI-CLOSED. i'm a slow learner.

[unprays]

Who: sansa stark (unprays) & various
What: sansa does rounds after the whole kidnapping thing, and also deals with her father going back to stasis.
When: late march, possibly also early april
Where: both olympia and wyver
Warning(s): your standard game of thrones warnings apply, along with all the warnings you could think for the previous event.

( starters in the comments! if you want one, hit me up on plurk @ celen or send me a PM and we can plot something! or just wildcard me, that works too ♥ )

Comments

[hedonistic]

Naaah.

[Her smile is smoothing out, and that helps Kagari's posture become less stiff, too. He appreciates her, honestly; she tends to know when not to ask questions she might not want answers to.]

I'd be a terrible person to kidnap. [He lets out a short bark of a laugh, which, shockingly enough, doesn't appear particularly forced.]

I mean, who would even want me back? It'd be pointless.

[Whoops. Sorry if he ever remotely gave you the impression he was okay, Sansa. :');;;;;]

[unprays]

[ when you have so many questions you'd rather are never asked aloud, you learn to not ask questions of others, or smell the ones they'd rather be asked, too.

she raises her eyebrow, wondering just what would make him such a terrible victim, until he elaborates, and she freezes. for a long moment, she stares at him, her blue eyes searching for some sign that he is joking, that it's the kind of dark humor she has come to expect from him.

but when none comes, she reaches out, slowly, placing her hand on his arm. ]

I would.

[ he's her friend. she'd want him back. ]

[hedonistic]

[It's all fun and games until someone tells you they value you as a person. If it weren't for the context, it'd be almost comical how quick the color drains out of his face, taking that sharp-edged cheeky smirk and flattening it out into something deeply, deeply uncomfortable.

There are ugly words right on the tip of his tongue--no you wouldn't. The urge to lash out with cruelty to protect his own heart. Somehow, maybe it's Akane sleeping right there in front of him, or maybe it's something else, but he doesn't say them. But he does take a step back, away from her arm and her comforting touch. A mirror of the first time they met and it was she who withdrew from him.]

...That's sweet, Sansa-chan. But you've got your own people to worry about, right?

[It's hit him, in that moment of panic, that he knows who the man in that stasis pod is. Eddard Stark, lord of somewhere or other that he doesn't remember anymore. Nobility. It's clear as anything that she's been through Some Shit too, but she was somebody.

He was, as ever, trash. Even his own parents didn't fight to keep him. How could anyone else?]

[unprays]

[ she watches the colour leave his face, watches him step back and put a wall between them, even if that wall is nothing but air — she watches him and thinks of Theon, the cold words and bitterness and you never cared about me, we were never friends.

it's hard to trust in something, anything, when all your life you've been told and told yourself you don't matter.

she frowns. ]

Why does that mean I can't worry about you, too? [ there's a flash of something in her eyes, an undertone to her quiet voice. ] Back home, I lost almost everyone I cared about. My father, my mother, two of my brothers. My only friends. In the end, it was only Jon and I left. Here, it's still only the two of us. I don't have that many friends, either — but the ones I have I'll worry about, no matter what.

And you're one of them. Even if you don't want to hear it. [ the last part she adds almost on instinct — after all, it's the same thing she's been telling Theon. ]

[hedonistic]

[Her words hit him like a kick to the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. He could tell she'd been through some kind of hell or another, both from how she acted and how she reacted to him, but he wouldn't have guessed this.

He stares at the ground for a minute as he clenches his fists at his side, then looks up at Sansa, a challenge in his eyes.]

That's exactly why. You've got people that need you around and not getting tortured or whatever. Hell, if it's only you and your brother awake here, that's more reason you shouldn't risk your neck for some guy you barely know.

[unprays]

I've been tortured before, [ she answers in a tone that is terrifyingly matter-of-fact. ] I've been beaten and hurt and humiliated, and there was no one who cared, or tried to help. At least here, I've got people who would care, who'd go after whoever did that to me.

[ she sighs and offers him the tiniest of smiles, one that is sad and tired but a smile nonetheless. ]

Isn't it my duty to do the same, for them? I know what it's like to have no one in the world who could protect you, or care about what happens to you. I won't let anyone go through the same, if I can help it.

[hedonistic]

[Kagari's eyes widen sharply at that confession, clenched jaw going slack for just a moment in shock. He knows that tone she's using, too; the flat emptiness of a person who's been through the kind of hell where there's nothing that could happen to them that would be more miserable than what they've already lived through. Kagari's own suffering is of a different character than Sansa's, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand.

Some part of him still wants to argue that it's different, that he's nobody and never was, and she shouldn't waste her time. But he can't.

He stares at the ground.]

Duty is bullshit.

[Kagari doesn't really think much of concepts like that. There were obligations, things you had to do in order to survive, like being an Enforcer had been for him, but ... he wasn't the type of person who did things out of a sense of moral rightness.]

...But I'd do anything for my friends from home if they were awake, so. If you feel that way about me, I guess there's nothing I can say about that.

[unprays]

Maybe, [ she offers back — duty could be that, or it could be the only thing that kept you sane. it was both obligation and honour.

she stares at him, unblinking, her eyes both frosty and warm. softly, slowly, she steps closer, one step, two steps. closer until she can pull him into a hug: barely there, barely touching him, but a hug nonetheless. ]

... when the snows fall, [ she whispers, ] and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

[ pack. he's part of hers, now. ]

SOB SANSA....should we wrap here?

[hedonistic]

[That sounds like some kind of saying, from her world. Kagari might have responded with something prickly and unpleasant, some defensive assertion that it didn't matter, because everyone died someday, and sometimes you died because of the pack you were in, like Akane's poor friend Yuki.

But then she puts her arms around him, and the last of his resistance crumbles into so much dust. He stands stiff, at first, shoulders seeming to tremble nearly in time with the thud thud thud thud of his heart. How long has it been since somebody last hugged him? Even at the MWPSB, as much as he cherished his divisionmates and saw them as family, affection wasn't quite so open or intimate--generally shown with kind gestures or simply time spent together. More casual touches like a ruffle of hair, a chin on a head, an elbow poked at the ribs.

Nobody's held him like this in seventeen years. His breath hitches in his throat, and he feels a powerful urge to just run, and never show his face to her ever again. Because clearly she's made a mistake, right? Nobody should choose to to care for him like this. With the other Enforcers, their kinship came from having nobody else but each other, and Akane-chan was so kind and soft that she had love in her heart for every living thing that walked the earth.

He's scared, honestly. He's scared of mattering. But he does, and she's stripped him of every excuse not to, short of outright cruelty. Which is no longer an option, at this point.

It takes an agonizingly long time, but eventually he lifts his arms and rests them on her back. Kagari still thinks this is a mistake. But maybe....maybe he can strive for it to be a mistake worth making.]