redshiftlogs | [semi-open] never betray the way you've always known it is

Lalli woke up a little while ago and has felt awful ever since. He's handed the earbuds back to Cho, finding the sound distracting when he's not trying to drift off, but he's not interested in talking to her either. Which leaves him alone with his thoughts. And those thoughts keep landing on how much he's definitely fucked up.

He hadn't wanted to hurt Onni like that--he'd only wanted to remove the obligation of caring for him, hadn't wanted to talk to him because he thought it would only lead to a lecture. But the Onni he talked to had sounded devastated, because of Lalli. And of course he would be; it was stupid of him to have ever thought otherwise.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Regardless of what Cho is doing, he's ignoring her and staring miserably at his own knees when he hears an unmistakable footstep in the vent above them. Immediately he tenses and his gaze shoots upward, his mind racing--his first thought is beast and even though there shouldn't be any here, the adrenaline makes his pulse pound. Nothing good ever comes from things scurrying around in vents.

"Something's in the ceiling." His voice drops to a whisper--for once due to urgency rather than fever--and, yeah, that's him very clearly making a move to get out of the tub.

"You're still going to have to take your cough suppressant," Cho tells him, not entirely certain that he hasn't internalized the schedule and is making an attempt to avoid the medication by distracting her. He's serious, though - focused, and concerned, and trying to get out of the tub not to run, but with a determined focus in his eyes.

It could be a hallucination. But what if it's not?

Cho stands quickly, holding out a hand, not actually touching Lalli, but coming close to it. She holds up one finger to her lips. Quiet. Then turns her attention to the ceiling. Let her listen. She wants to see if she can hear what he hears.

He does stop moving when she indicates, though he doubts she has ears as good as his. Regardless, there isn't another sound right away. The one he'd heard was very quiet, so this is someone or something who knows what they're doing.

But he definitely heard it. He knows what someone trying to sneak sounds like. And he can sneak pretty well himself--while Cho is trying to listen, he slips out of the water and creeps toward the nearest vaguely weapon-shaped thing he can see. Which happens to be a blow-dryer. He's fairly certain it is not actually a gun, but it's heavy enough to hit something with.

And then it happens again--an undeniable, metallic shfff of movement, now much farther along, from the direction of the next room.

Yup, Cho definitely heard that. They're trapped in a bathroom with God knows what outside the door and she has no idea how she's supposed to protect Lalli from this. The flu, the fever, she's on it. She knows what to do, she has an entire theoretical medical education at her mental fingertips and she's prepared. Whatever is on the other side of the door? She is not. Not at all. She wishes Cole was here. Cole and his confidence and his speed and his knives. Why did she wait so long to take him up on his offer to teach her how to defend herself?

Cho reaches for the metal bar in its bracket on the wall, meant for towels. She knows how to swing a bat, maybe not to hit a baseball with any real skill, but for a bigger target, it'll do. The weight feels right. Solid. It's something, at least. "Stay behind me," she tells Lalli, in a quiet voice. She has no idea how she's supposed to actually protect him, but that doesn't mean she won't try.

The sounds have stopped, whoever's behind that door knows that Genji is there and he frowns behind the mask. He must be getting careless, he's only been here a month and already he's neglecting his training and making mistakes. There's at least two people, and Genji pauses to listen for any indication that he's about to burst in on two random residents unconnected to what he's looking for who happen to be in a bathroom together. Having been caught in that situation more than once he's very familiar with the sound of scrambling to pull clothes on - which he doesn't hear now.

So it's something else.

There's an electric edge to the silence now, both parties waiting for the other to make a move. It's Genji who breaks through the tension, darting forward to slam into the door with his metal shoulder and bust it right off the hinges and into the room, quickly jumping back with shurikens at the ready.

Never hesitate, but always be sure of the situation before attacking. And right now he isn't one hundred percent sure of who is on the other side of the door, the last thing he wants to do is kill an innocent couple having some fun in the bath.

In the darkness of the room he may not fully be visible to the occupants other than the lights on his suit and the edges of his shuriken. He'd decided to not wear the jacket and pants on this little mission as they hindered his movement too much. He's still crouched in a defensive position, ready to end whoever is in there that is holding Lalli hostage.

Lalli startles badly when the door bursts open. Normally he's more prepared for dangerous surprises, but normally he isn't feverish and having to lean on the wall for support.

He's wobbly enough that just jerking back in surprise causes him to wobble and lose his balance, and in his panic he ends up throwing the blow dryer he's holding blindly in the direction of the intruder. Then he's just preoccupied in landing the way that hurts the least.

"Lalli!" Cho's focus is now not so much on the intruder as on Lalli, who is far too sick for all this nonsense. Call it an eighty-twenty split. He's falling, and he's all sharp bones and delicate limbs and she's very afraid that he's going to hit his head. So she's dropping the towel bar and diving to try and stop that fall, and catching the business end of that hair dryer cord full in the face in the process. Which hurts. A surprising amount, actually.

It's an awkward kind of heap that they land in, Cho's hand at the back of Lalli's head to keep it from smacking into the wall or the floor. She has lost absolutely all credibility, but she still glares at the glowing thing in the doorway with about as much rage as a wet kitten in a soggy cardboard box. "There's nothing in here to steal, just leave us alone. Can't you see he's sick?"

Then back to her dripping companion. "Lalli, we need to get you back in the tub. You're getting too worked up. Your fever is going to spike again." She's moving them, the little that she can, so that Genji will have to go through her to hurt Lalli. Not that she imagines she will be much of a challenge for a guy in glowing armour with-- is that a freaking sword?

Instinctively he tries to dodge the projectile, but he's a little too perplexed by what's happening to move out of the way completely and the handle of the blow dryer thwonks against his helmet before falling to the ground with a reverberating thud. Cho said Lalli's name, which confirms that this is who he came here for, but then she assumes he's there to steal something and also goes to try and grab Lalli away. Obviously for some nefarious purpose.

"You are Lalli. I was looking for you." He straightens up, retracting the shurikens back into his arm, but keeping one hand on his wakizashi. There may be more blow dryers to deflect in the future.

"I am not here to steal anything." His voice is dripping with disgust that she thinks that he, a ninja and former member of Overwatch, is a common thief come to steal their bathroom accessories. "I know he is sick, that is why I am here. Onni didn't know where he was so I came to find him."

He approaches closer, watching her, "What have you done with him?"

She has no idea why he'd be there, honestly. This whole thing just keeps getting weirder and weirder. "You know he's sick, so you knocked the door off its hinges? What if we'd been standing right in front of it?" Cho is so done with today. Her head hurts, she's hungry, and she can feel the angry sting in her cheek that means she definitely has a welt and might end up with a nice bruise to carry around for a few days. Not that she blames Lalli. He didn't mean to.

Cho is shaking. She is terrified, honestly, and her fight or flight reflex is screaming at her to just run as fast as she can. But she promised Lalli that she would take care of him, and she might not have been at all prepared for this, but she won't just abandon him.

Edited (breaking conversation into pieces) 2019-11-26 07:44 (UTC)

"Then I would have hit you, the one holding him hostage," said evenly as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

He lowers his hand from his sword, approaching the bathroom and standing in the doorway to look down at her and Lalli. This whole situation is far stranger than he expected when he set out to try and find him.

"You didn't answer me. What did you do to him?"

Would have hit her. Might have hit Lalli, if he’d been close enough, but would have hit her, and the idea doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. Just a statement of fact. Cho feels her whole body flood with ice, the bottom dropping out of her stomach. That door had slammed into the room like a battering ram. If it had hit her--

The frustration morphs, all at once and beyond her control, into horror. Suddenly, she’s not in Anchor any more. She’s not in this bathroom with her wet almost friend lying awkwardly on her ankle and a glowing ninja filling the broken doorway. She’s back home, and she’s small and she’s scared and she’s helpless, and something very bad is about to happen to her... and she can’t do anything to stop it.

She can’t respond to Genji’s question. Her tongue is too heavy to form words. She can’t move. She feels like she can’t even breathe around the lump in her throat. How strange is it, that the rapid-fire beat of her heart rushing in her ears almost sounds like the ocean? That sound should soothe her, shouldn’t it? It doesn’t.

Cole appears in a curl of smoke and the glint of drawn knives.

The knives aren't up and ready to attack, but loose in Cole's fingers. The only thing that has led him to reveal himself and not simply put his knives into the attacker's neck is the awareness that there's no malice behind the man's actions. There's a cold indifference to hurting others that actively makes Cole nauseous and a blunt lack of awareness that other people can be hurt, harmed and killed by his actions.

"She didn't kidnap anyone and if you paid any attention, you would realise she's a medic and was helping him. And you'd realise that you're terrifying her and scaring him. You need to leave the room, you're making everything sharp and shattered and painful. You're making it all worse."

This is now, officially, too much going on.

"STOP!" He tries to yell it, but his voice is still too hoarse and it just comes out as a croak. Regardless, with Cho out of commission he manages to extricate from her and haul himself to his feet. It's slow going, and he has to brace his weight on the counter to stay upright, but if anybody tries to help him he will hit them.

Once he gets there, he backs himself into the corner farthest from everyone else and levels a glare at the entire room, which might have been more effective if he wasn't swaying in place, dripping wet, and only in his underwear.

"Everyone stop. This is stupid. Everything's going all wrong and it's my fault so shut up while I fix it. Okay?" He does not wait for an agreement before barreling on. First, he looks at Genji.

"She didn't kidnap me or anything, she's trying to help. If Onni sent you, then bring him here. I need to talk to him."

Then, to Cho--but she's not responsive. With a guilty twist of his stomach he recognizes that she's panicking, but he has no idea what to do to help her, and he's not equipped for it anyway in his state. So he looks at Cole instead. Lalli's not sure what he is, but he seems to care about Cho, and hopefully that means he can help her.

"Tell her I said that when he comes. Okay? That I want to talk to him."

Finally, back to Genji. "Get Onni." You know, in case he forgot in the last five seconds.

And with that, he's done. That is entirely enough energy out of him for the time being; his throat hurts and he's exhausted. He makes his way back to the bathtub, grabbing Cho's earbuds along the way. Then, because knows it's what she'd want him to do, he slips back into the bath, jams the headphones in his ears, resolutely does not curl up, and turns away to face the wall in an obvious dismissal.

If anybody who isn't Onni tries to talk to him right now he is gonna lose it.

"Those two things are not mutually exclusive." He doesn't really react to the manifestation of someone right in front of him holding weapons. Must be a day ending in y. Why wouldn't someone who had kidnapped someone keep them alive? Of course they would the whole point of holding someone hostage is for them to be not dead.

Terrified? Lalli seems fine and he has no idea what Cho is doing other than staring at him. Behind the mask his eyes narrow, assuming she thinks he's some sort of Omnic abomination. Her panic completely invisible to him because it doesn't compute that she would be frightened.

He's about to say something to that effect when Lalli finally speaks, since he's the one he was there to find he doesn't care what the other two are saying anyway.

"Very well."

He'd wanted to bring Lalli to Onni but this works just as well. All the lights in his suit turn off and he fades into the darkness to go where Onni said he would be.

What started as a simple rescue mission has gotten very complicated all of the sudden.

Sharp. Shattered. Painful.

A fitting description for what he is.

Cho wants to say something to Cole when he appears, but she can't. Words won't come. When Lalli pulls away from her, she draws in on herself, curled up in a tight little ball, back pressed painfully hard against the wall. They're talking. She can hear the words, but they just wash over her, like the waves she can still feel rushing in her ears. When Lalli comes back toward her, she flinches away, until she realizes that it's him, it's only him. She's still trembling, still having trouble breathing, but she's not completely frozen any more. Cole will keep her safe, so she can keep Lalli safe. She's helpless, but he is not.

Lalli picks up the ear-buds. He wants the forest noises again. Cho doesn't want to move, wants to stay wedged in the corner made by the tub and the wall, the illusion of safety even if she knows she has nothing of the sort. She's trying to work herself up to reaching for the iPod, finding the forest rainstorm, but Lalli remembers how it works, brings up the song he wants, doesn't need her for that. So she stays curled in on herself again, and tries to shut out the world, shut out everything but the sound of Lalli breathing and the timer counting down in her mind, seconds ticking away until he needs medication again. It's just seconds. Seconds are nothing. Just a blink. She can last through just a few seconds, and then she'll do it again, and again, and again. Just a few seconds. This is fine.

Cole doesn't relax from his stance until Genji turns and leaves. Lalli is taking care of himself (his fever has come down, he's able to think, to reason, that's good) and Genji will take time to go to Onni, talk and come back.

He sheathes the knives on his back and turns around, dropping into a crouch and pressing close enough to shield Cho from anything trying to come in. His fingers come up to gently stroke her hair, soothing and slow. "It's okay, he's gone. Lalli's well enough to make decisions. No one's going to hurt you, I won't let them. They won't even see you if you want."

He can do that. It's a strain, but he can literally make people not see others with him. He did it with Ben not long ago.

"This isn't your fault. You did nothing to deserve being treated that way. He did what he decided was right, because it made him feel better, without thinking about what would actually help. You only do what you think will help others, you never think of yourself first when someone else could be helped."

There has been a strange comfort in not being noticed, ever since she was a very young child. It means she's Doing Things Correctly. Sitting silently at the edge of a room, nothing to draw attention to herself, that was her very first large scale lesson. It made them happy with her. Being completely unobtrusive was the ideal, but it had always been at war with her very basic desire for human connection, to be touched, to be known. When Cole moves his fingers through her hair, she turns her face into it, just a little, because she wants to matter.

Lalli. She's worried about Lalli. All this excitement and strain is bad, and she's been keeping the fever out of the truly dangerous range, but it won't break, and she wants to help him. She needs to help him. She needs to break the fever. She needs to stop thinking of herself so that she can help him, but she just can't make herself move. Cole feels safe, but she doesn't - she feels wrong, and raw, and too loud and too quiet, all awkward dissonant chords in her mind, a jangle of horrible emotions she doesn't want to feel, but she has nowhere to put them.

"Breathe," Cole whispers. "Just breathe. I've got Lalli now, I can take care of him, I know what to do, because you know what to do. You didn't do anything wrong. I've got Lalli now. I need you to look after you, okay? I can't do it, so I need you to look you. You're keeping me as Compassion, so share that Compassion with yourself, please."

He keeps up stroking her hair. "I have it all in hand now. You can just sit here and relax and be able to see that Lalli's okay and I'm taking care of him. And when Onni and Genji come back, I'll take care of that too. This is what I am."

When Cole tells Cho to breathe, it carries a lot of weight, and not just because slipping back into an obedient frame of mind is a strange sort of comfort, after all that. It's a helplessness of her choosing, which is barely better than the alternative, but she'll take anything she can get. Cole tells her to breathe, because he doesn't want her to hurt. So she takes a deep breath. As deep as she can manage, anyway, which is not that much. Still, it's better than the short little huffs that are making her head swim. He tells her to breathe again, and she does, a little deeper this time.

He'll take care of it. He'll take care of it all. It's what he is. Cho nods her head, and after one croaky false start, finds her voice. "Promise?" Cho believes him, but she still wants to hear it, for some reason. It means so much to her, to make a promise to give someone your word. Can she have his?

"I promise," he whispers to her. "Just focus on breathing, head back, shoulders wide, open your chest to breathe. Close your eyes and count your breaths, nice and slow in, nice and slow out." He tucks her hair behind her ear and gives her a small smile. "I've got this."

He can handle Lalli for now.

She can breathe. She can do that. Head back, shoulders wide, though she can't manage to uncurl the rest of the way. She feels safer, tucked up in half of a tight little ball.

Cole knows what to do because she does. He can be her hands. Most importantly, if she's all right, he'll go to Lalli, so she has to be all right. She presses shaking hands against his chest, nods her head. "'M fine." She's not, but she will be. She wants to be. That must count for something. She'll be fine.

She gives him a little push, even though she doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t, but she does. She wants him in two places at once, which he can't be, and she wants him taking care of Lalli more. That's what’s most important right now. "Stay with him. He's not safe until his fever breaks."

"You're not, but helping him will help you." He touches her cheek gently. "I'll be right there. You can see me. And you know I won't let anything happen to either of you."

She knows that, he hopes.

But he moves back to Lalli, keeping track of when he needs his next dose of medication and keeping the water at the right temperature.

Cho nods her head. Cole is right. She'll feel better if she knows he's focused on Lalli, what he's feeling, what the fever is doing to his body. She also knows that she's safe with him, that he won't let anyone hurt her, that if the man who broke the door down comes back, he'll protect her. It's fine. They will be fine.

She counts her breaths, in and out, as measured and even as she's capable of. She hugs her knees to her chest, not as tightly as she'd like to, because she's still trying to keep her head up and her shoulders back, and she watches Cole look after Lalli. That's what she focuses on, keeping the thoughts of what he needs clear in her mind, blocking out the rest.

It helps. It helps a lot. She sinks into that focus, and she waits.

Genji is always silent, it's a force of habit and he wouldn't know any other way to be, but he's not trying to be stealthy as he approaches the room where Lalli is. Instead of making a dramatic vent-based entrance he comes in through the front door like a normal person, eyeing the three people in the bathroom before getting closer.

No one seems to be injured, Lalli is back in the tub ignoring all of them and hasn't been messily murdered by the other person who'd shown up with knives drawn. Good. After he'd gone to retrieve Onni he'd had a minor panic that he shouldn't have left, that the new person who'd shown up was the actual threat and might have been there to kill Lalli and whoever that woman was with him. He'd just been so confused by the entire situation that he'd left without really thinking it through. So he's more than a little relieved to find that everything seems to be fine.

He ignores Cho completely, stepping into the room around the fallen remnants of the door to address Lalli directly, "Lalli? I brought Onni with me."

Onni is a lot more stable now than he had been earlier. It isn't just that Genji had gotten back to him about Lalli earlier. Being able to vent some of his frustration and fear at Reynir both by words and crying had helped, and that's a strangely new experience for Onni. But, at least for now, he's leaving that on the back burner to be thought about later.

Right now, he's going to see Lalli. So he steels himself as he follows Genji into the bathroom where they've had his cousin, his expression neutral though the remnants of his emotion are written all over his face - his eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, still a little glassy, his cheeks are flushed, his hair is a mess.

Stopping at the door for a moment, he clenches his fists at the side as he sees Cho sitting on the floor looking blank, and Cole beside the tub. That's a little shock, surprise and then a feeling of something like betrayal that he swallows down, and he furrows his brows, mouth set in a straight line. But he lets Genji do the talking at first.

[semi-open] never betray the way you've always known it is

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