jigokulogs | [open] a real nightmare

[ Woman, fucking please. He gives her such a look as he dangles out the bottle. It's not even that he doesn't understand, he has the same reaction to putting things into words: it becomes too real. But it's what he came over here to talk about, so here they are. ]

Met him twice an' he died for me. Ya think that shit matters t'him?

[ Nishitani imprints on whoever the hell he feels like. Majima sure hadn't wanted his attention, he hadn't wanted that dead girl in the river. Now he's strung to the man in a way he can't untangle; as surely as being possessed. ]

[ She gives him a little look right back - but it doesn’t have any real bite, probably because they both know she’s not being entirely honest. If that wasn’t already obvious, the visible discomfort in her face at Majima’s comment gets added to the growing pile of damning evidence. ]

Yeah, alright. So I’ll try not to let him do anything lethally stupid for me. Can we fucking leave it?

[ She takes the whiskey and takes a deep, long pull from the bottle. ]

…It’s not like I meant to let this happen. You probably didn’t either.

Can't think of a fuckin' thing I meant to happen.

[ His life is an ongoing train wreck of desperate decisions and impulsivity. She has observed this up close and intimately, even. The sprawling mess of his obligations and relationships. ]

Is what it is. Me an' Nishitani are a package set.

[ Because he did say yes. He did let Nishitani in to the life he's built for himself. ]

...So are me an' Emily. An' our guy, Izo.

[ There's a whole fucking thing going on here that Andy has wandered in to. Majima is staring at the ceiling. ]

[ She’d told herself she was done doing this a long time ago. After Lykon and Noriko - after being with them for two thousand years - hadn’t she fucking learned anything? Hadn’t that hurt badly enough? What is she doing exactly? How could she let this happen?

Fuck. She’s so fucking stupid. She’s stupid and she can’t even pretend like she doesn’t give a shit. It’s too late for that, isn’t it?

Andy abandons the whiskey to bury her face in her hands, lingering there for a long moment before finally dragging her fingers back into her hair with a weary exhale. ]

So, that’s it? It is what it is? [ She huffs out a humorless laugh. ] Majima - you don’t even fucking know me. None of you even know my real name. I’m not -

[ Not what? Capable? Not willing? No. Maybe… Not deserving? ]

[ He inhales on his cigarette, glancing to watch her go through this little emotional emergency. It's not his freak out. Although, he'd probably be having it if this were happening to him from the opposite direction. If he hadn't already suffered long and hard for these people, too much so to deny that they're his. ]

Yeah, that's it.

[ And he's not going to ask any of those questions because he doesn't really care what the answers are. It's irrelevant. They all have their secrets, it is immaterial to their commitments. ]

Fuck you. [ She breathes the curse out first - then, with building temper, rising up from the confused knot of feelings in her gut: ] Fuck you, Majima -

[ Fuck him for calling her out like this. For making her confront any of it. For acting like she can be accepted here despite everything that she fucking is and everything she’s fucking done - that’s it, he says. Like it’s fucking simple. ]

How the hell do you even know I give enough of a shit for this? [ She grinds out her dwindling cigarette against the kitchen counter harder than she needs to. ] Do you have this talk with everybody Nishitani fucks?

Just th'one he's livin' with.

[ Ma'am please, this is a Wendy's. ]

An' th'one hangin' around Em's clinic, oh... ya got drinks with Izo too.

[ He spreads his hands at her, snags up that whiskey bottle for an appropriately large drink while getting yelled at. If he cares what kind supernatural bullshit she has going on, the point is pretty moot when his boyfriend is already the damn Hitokiri who killed her over a hundred years ago. ]

[ With exasperation: ]

That just happened. [ As if she couldn’t have done something about it, if she really hadn’t wanted Nishitani to stay. It isn’t as if she’s sharing that futon unwillingly. ] It’s not like I fucking -

[ It’s not like she what? Actually cares about the man? Loves him, maybe? That’s dangerous territory when Majima keeps calling her out with pinpoint precision. Instead, she tries: ]

Emily found me. It wasn’t -

[ Wasn’t like she came the second Emily needed someone to talk to. As if she doesn’t sometimes think about how gentle it was when Emily touched her. ]

Izo -

[ Is one of the only people who knows she was immortal. And cut her throat once, which is more intimate than a lot of things. ]

You -

[ But maybe that’s the last hill she wants to try and die on when she and Majima are so alike that it’s annoying to both of them. It’s bad enough that he has her on the ropes with this, grasping for fucking straws and coming up empty. Goddamn him. ]

…Fuck you, Majima.

[ In the end, that’s all she’s got. ]

[ He crosses his arms and waits this out. What a fucking ornery woman, no wonder Nishitani likes her. ]

Yeah? It that big a problem havin' people in your life?

[ This is a rhetorical question. He can clearly see that it is. ]

Gonna take a swing on me, or what?

[ ...Majima took a bat to Nishitani when he showed up here. He gets it. It's a lot easier to be angry than deal with a stomachful of grief and hurt. He puts the bottle back on the counter between them. ]

[ It is a problem. Because she’s the exact kind of idiot that will well and truly give a big damn about all of them. That ride or die kind of shit. The kind where you do reckless, stupid things - and you get hurt, because that’s what always happens. Seven thousand years, all the people she’s loved, and it’s hurt her every single time.

But Majima probably already knows she’s that type of stupid. She’d exposed herself that day when she told him - how she misses having people. People to protect. To live for. Even though she knows better. He has the measure of her, and fighting this feels a little pointless now. Suddenly, she’s less angry and mostly just… Tired.

So very fucking tired. ]

What for? [ The ornery woman finally mutters in response, reaching for the whiskey. Bitch is entirely too sober for this. ] Wouldn’t change anything, would it? Probably just put me in the dog house with Em.

Cuz ya'd rather pick a fight than play nice.

[ After multiple rounds of fuck you that much seems fairly clear. It was also just assumed based on the fact that she hooked up with Nishitani at all. He's got a type.

Majima also knows better than to make a single comment about how effective Emily is at taming Andy. It will only get tossed back to him. He can feel that in his fucking bones. He is stupid for that woman. ]

[ Picking a fight honestly isn't entirely off the table. It never really is with Andy, and she's still debating whether it might just make her feel better. If nothing else, she's dead sure that Majima could take it. ]

Do you want me to play nice? [ She asks it with a frown, one hand on the bottle and the other on her hip. ] What the fuck does that even look like in this scenario, playing nice? Maybe I've been playing too fucking nice, and that's why we're fucking here.

[ Here. Whatever she means by that. Some vague acknowledgment. ]

[ He's quiet for a moment, putting out the last of his cigarette. ]

If ya don't want nothin' t'do with it, I can tell 'em ya want yer space. Ya can lose my phone number an' all that.

[ He glances at her lazily, hands back on the counter. He is annoyingly patient with all this, but then he's had practice just shoving himself down and letting someone rail at him. ]

But there's gonna be trouble an' we're his people. We ain't goin' anywhere. Playin' nice is probably just dealin' with it.

[ Whatever 'it' is. He assumes she's affronted by their commitment because she lost everyone somewhere along the way. He'd understand that. It is hard letting people in when he thinks about the Saejima siblings, the family he lost and can't get back to. ]

I'm not going anywhere either.

[ That comes out too fast. With too much feeling. It shows on her face when she hears herself, and it's a conscious effort when she pulls her voice back in, eyebrows pinched together with something like annoyance. She sounds more measured when she finally goes on: ]

I didn't say I want nothing to do with it. [ Though, to be fair, with the tantrum she had, it'd be reasonable to interpret it that way. ] That's not...

[ An exhale. She squeezes the bridge of her nose between her fingers for a moment. It's still too hard to put words to all of it. There's too much she's not ready to admit to someone else. She's too — afraid, maybe. A coward, not in many things, but certainly with this shit. ]

What about everyone else? What they want? [ Finally, she looks up again. ] What you want?

Then don't go nowhere.

[ He shrugs. It's a binary choice: either she's in or she's out, they'll respect what she wants either way. If she wants to just fuck Nishitani and pretend like there's nothing else there, more power to her. She just has to tell them that's what she wants; there isn't a mindreader in the bunch. ]

We wanna get along with th'woman our guy is seein'. An' we'll treat ya like family if ya wanna be family.

[ He has another unlit cigarette plucked loose from his deck, twiddling it that way for the moment. ]

Ya could do worse than us. Could probably do better too. Ain't none of us good people, Andy.

Edited 2022-05-29 01:08 (UTC)

[ She wishes he wouldn't use that word. Family. That shit makes her heart ache. Fuck.

It would be easier, if she knew what she wants. Or if she were capable of admitting it to anyone, including herself. And maybe she wasn't ready to confront this today — maybe she never would have been ready — but the fight she's putting up, what's even left of it, is for show at best. A futile effort, because everything she's done up to this point says that there is something here that she wants, even if she's been an ornery bitch about it the whole goddamn time.

Her voice is very quiet, when it finally comes, and half-muffled by her hand where it covers her face, as if she can hardly stand to be seen by another person in that moment. ]

...Of course I want to be family. Of course I do.

[ Wanting it happens to be the only real qualification to joining this family. He tucks the unlit cigarette at his lips, so that it's out of the way as he reaches out to put an arm around her shoulders. ]

Gettin' a big taste of our yakuza bullshit now, huh.

[ Pitched as a joke, even if between himself and Nishitani all this family and bonds shit is all too serious. A lesson in responsibility and obligation to those you swear it to. They don't break their promises. ]

[ It’s almost more than she can take, being touched like that. Being comforted. Would’ve been easier for her by far if he’d fought back even a little, instead of waiting her out like this, disarming her with sentiments like family. It leaves her raw and exposed, her feelings in her fucking throat.

She can’t look at him yet. But there’s a stubborn will in her voice, even when it comes out a muffled mutter. ]

It’s my bullshit too.

[ Hers and theirs. ]

[ It's not a thing to fight about. Not yet, anyway. Losing Makoto and his wife down the road will make him more like Andromache: upset and angry at the sight of real emotional investment. The divorce convinces him he is too toxic to be loved. But then, if he never goes back to Sotenbori, he can never meet Mirei.

Right now he still thinks he might have a chance at deserving a family. He can't be all broken, can he? It's not irreversible, is it? ]

Yeah, we'll take your bullshit too. We all have some.

[ Insecurities and untenable coping mechanisms. Miserable, bloody backstories. They have decided to all stick together any way, in spite of the secrets and broken pieces. ]

[ She still doesn't feel ready. It still feels like more than she knows how to cope with. Some part of her wants to fight this back with everything that she fucking has, even if it means burning every last bridge, hurting everyone she's come to care about — because then there wouldn't be a choice anymore. No uncertainty. No way to go back. But if it's going to be painful anyway — if it's too late, because the feelings are already there — can't she just let herself have this? Can't she just... Try?

It hurts just wanting it. A growing ache in her chest, the longer she dwells on it. ]

...And if I fuck this up? Then what?

[ Finally, she looks up at Majima, something unsteady and emotional in her eyes even though she's stopped raising her voice. ]

It fucking terrifies me. Having something to lose.

[ He is genuinely quiet and contemplative in response, looking at nothing for a moment before his good eye flicks up to hold her gaze. ]

Already lost everythin' once. Ain't doin' it again.

[ And then he straightens up from where he'd draped around her shoulder, lighting his cigarette. This statement should not be a surprise, that eye didn't cut itself out. ]

Don't care what it takes.

[ And he is recklessly certain of that, in a way only young men can be. That's his answer though: don't fuck it up and don't let go. ]

[ She envies that. His determination. How certain his words sound. She'd been determined once too. And so fucking sure of herself. Why wouldn't she be? She was Andromache of Scythia — immortal, invincible, unstoppable. A fucking god of war. Nobody could take what was hers. But then, Noriko had always told her that hubris was one of her vices — and Noriko had always been right. She'd lost everything. Over and over and over again. And she'd been helpless to stop it, every single fucking time.

What good was the immortality anyway, if she couldn't even use it to protect what she loved? What good was she?

And yet, here she is again. Because she's stupid. Because she didn't learn her lesson, no matter how much it hurt. And she has to try and believe that it can be different this time, despite everything — otherwise it'll drive her completely insane. Maybe she won't always be strong — maybe she'll fucking doubt, and maybe the effort will be futile in the end anyway, but... Fuck it. She can fight. She will. Tooth and nail. And somehow, something in Majima's voice makes her trust that she won't be fighting alone. That's something, isn't it? ]

...Okay. [ Finally, quietly. ] Then I'm with you. For whatever the fuck that's worth.

[ Sometimes, at the bottom of the world, your promises are the only thing you have of any worth. That's a little much for him to say out loud though, he's been about as emotionally competent today as he's going to be. ]

Cheers, then.

[ He won't even rub it in her face what a big fucking snit she threw about it. What a nice guy. ]

[ Any more emotional competence from him today, and it might actually kill her, so it's probably just as well. There's a tangible relief in her posture when he seems willing to leave it at that, her shoulders relaxing as she takes another swig of the whisky before setting it back on the counter and nudging it Majima's way. ]

Fucking cheers, you bastard. [ He deserves a little name-calling, she thinks, for busting her balls like this to begin with — but the insult doesn't have any bite behind it, and she does appreciate that, at the very least, he brought alcohol to help soothe her pride afterward. ] Hope you don't regret this shit later.

[open] a real nightmare

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