[open log] Week 22, day 3
Who: Matt and anyone who wants to wander by!
Status: Open
Style: Prose, past tense
Where: By a waterfall in Mizusato
When: Week 22, day 3, backdated due to internet fail
Rating: PG-13 for cussing
Warnings: Just Matt's potty mouth, I'd think
The mini-hydro (micro more than mini, Matt thought) generator looked homemade and sort of kludged-together, ( Read more... )
Status: Open
Style: Prose, past tense
Where: By a waterfall in Mizusato
When: Week 22, day 3, backdated due to internet fail
Rating: PG-13 for cussing
Warnings: Just Matt's potty mouth, I'd think
The mini-hydro (micro more than mini, Matt thought) generator looked homemade and sort of kludged-together, ( Read more... )
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There was still a lot to do, and it called for a lot more money than Matt had, or could imagine getting, but it was a start. It was a weird feeling, equal parts excitement and embarrassment, this half-formed hope that he could actually change things here, could cause a shift in the world. He didn't really think he would, but it was kinda cool to think, and there were only two people who might've been able to guess at his train of thought, and Elfangor was one.
That reminded him of his dream, and of the dream he'd seen, and he felt heat rise in his cheeks. "Did you, um. I mean, I saw." He had to laugh at how he could still be awkward, after all this time, a little, amused huff. "Feels weird, to see yourself in someone else's dream, huh?"
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But his expression softened when Matt brought up the dreams, and he made a thoughtful sound. "Mm, a bit. But that sense of strangeness mostly comes, I think, from seeing my kafit morph in your dream." And that was because he'd not used that morph in front of Matt. The only way he would have seen it would have been that time... when he'd shared his hirac delest. He did not regret sharing that, but it was strange, to have divulged all of that and then survived. (So long as one's definition of 'survival' was loose at best.)
"Apart from that... no, it did not seem so strange." It was true that it could feel weird to suddenly find himself witnessing--and sometimes experiencing--the dreams of others, but there was no such feeling when faced with Matt's dreams, because Matt's mind was familiar, resonating within him in a wordless yet unambiguous way that said home. To find confirmation of that within Matt's dream only reinforced this
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Matt lifted the water wheel out of the stream and shook his hand off before lighting a cigarette. There were guesses he could've made. Mostly, he thought, it had been shorthand for how Elfangor had landed in his life and changed everything, without Matt even realizing it at first. And if Matt was afraid he'd... well, fly back out again, he was at least sure by now it wouldn't be by choice, and he tried not to think about it.
"You know you only get to protect me if I can protect you back, right?" He said it lightly, with a mock-serious glance up from under his bangs, but he meant it, and that was a weird feeling, to be able to say that and know he could.
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"I know." He ducked his head, but he had to look back up, needed to make eye contact for this. "I know you can, you've already--"
His thoughts diverted to his death at the hands of that crazed Yomisato man, but should he mention that? Yes, Matt had avenged him, but it was too late to call it protecting. Still, it meant a great deal to him that Matt had done that, but he imagined now would not be an appropriate time to speak of it.
So he focused on other examples altogether. "At the cafe. And during the raid on that facility. I know what you are capable of; I know that you can protect me." He was silent for a moment, but it was just that, only a moment before he was compelled to add, "I just... I do not want you to get hurt on my account. Or at all, really."
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"If anything happened to you, I don't..." He trailed off, and blushed. Changed his mind, and decided he had to finish the thought, no matter how pathetic it made him sound. "I don't think I'd be okay. Like, ever again." He knew he wouldn't be, actually, and he knew why. It had taken him more than a lifetime to let himself need anyone without believing they'd leave him. He wouldn't be able to do it again. "So you're just gonna have to deal with me looking out for you."
He set the water wheel on the grass beside him, and gave the wheel part a spin with one finger. "I'd really like to know what kind of voltage this is producing."
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It was terrifying, to hold that much sway in one's heart--but that vulnerability was the other side of the coin to the all the joy and contentment found in this closeness, and oh, it was worth it.
"I know," he said, quietly, as he sat on the grass beside Matt and reached out for his hand. "We will just have to do our best to make certain that nothing happens." His lips twitched up into a small smile as he said this.
He eyed Matt's device, giving a contemplative hum. "There are some relatively inexpensive options for building a voltmeter, or a comparative alternative. It would require another trip to the summoning shop, but I think we still have sufficient funds for those components."
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There was more to it, and he didn't have an answer to the question that hurt the most to think about: what if one of us gets sent home? There was no pattern to who went and when. It was totally at the so-called gods' whim, and Matt didn't think they gave enough of an actual damn about people's happiness that they could be, like... he didn't even know. Petitioned, or something, to keep people together.
He pushed those thoughts away, and leaned in a little closer to Elfangor. "I did think about going old-school with it. I mean, people had capacitors in the 1700s and stuff."
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