[his head dips, feet not budging. a good part of him recognizes the suggestions of defeat in Noh-Varr's body language: lacking sleep or peace of mind, quiet, watchful but not assertive. sitting back, for once. the blond was never what he'd call loud, but there'd always been a type of energy to him.]
[the last time he'd seen the man like this was by a campfire in a frozen tundra. they'd barely known each other - but that didn't matter when sent so far from the familiar, scared and alone. the impression of the other being something strong and impressive hadn't faded, but it had gained some nostalgia. as with all memories, it transformed into something larger than it had been.]
[or perhaps Noh-Varr simply was that grand, even in grief. Hinata rarely felt things at less than one-hundred-percent.]
I'm tired of listening to myself.
[despite what the offer had been--- those are the words that slip out of his mouth. he still doesn't draw closer.]
Why don't you vent?
[if he said he had nothing worth saying - Hinata would call bullshit.]
[ The question makes Noh-Varr sit up straighter, if only because he wasn't expecting it. Not now and not from Hinata. In the same vein, he feels like this question is testing him, somewhat, and that consideration gives him pause.
It would be easy to say something like my life makes more sense here than it ever did before or it's in my nature to fall in or I wish I knew how to make better choices, but the desire passes quickly. Hinata doesn't need to know all his failings, and he shouldn't want to share them. He suspects the human would have difficulty understanding, or that the lack of sympathy would cause him distress when it's unneeded. Somewhere inside himself he doesn't want Hinata to know how human he is.
It isn't that Noh-Varr isn't frustrated, or that he copes well with losing people. It's that he's gotten so used to it he can't even summon up the indignation anymore. It took a lot of suffering to make him this way. He doesn't want that for Hinata.
Instead, what he offers is: ]
I just wish we'd be allowed to say goodbye, before they're sent away.
[ The deaths--they weigh on him. Fiona especially. She was just a human. A completely normal human. He could have, should have looked out for her more. But it's the transfers that gut him, knowing the others are out there, just out of reach.
He motions beside himself; there's space left there. It's an open invitation; some people prefer to stand when they're angry. ]
[straight lines, direct paths, bulldozed or otherwise: how Hinata's thoughts had always operated. now - a jumble, the jump from grief to hope and back too quick, an overwhelming shuffle that left him where he was: no straight paths, nothing direct or comprehensible. the official mission yielded no deserving corpses. likewise for the aftermath within the crew. the transfers were set at random - recruitment, the same. there was nothing to be done for it.]
[accepting that went against Hinata's very nature. and so - after raving, crying -- too much crying, newly embarrassing in the lack of humiliation he mustered over it - hearing his own simple, rehashed ideas that went nowhere again and again, told to concentrate on survival and a nebulous future--- he was sick of it.]
[did the people he knew have any ideas? did they hold back because they thought he couldn't take it?]
[he was sick of wondering those ugly, isolating thoughts, too. it came as a relief to look outward, even if those people hurt just as much as he.]
[momentary confusion (of course-- hell if he wasn't sick of that, too), a pinch between the eyebrows - there were burials this time - but then it clicks. the transfers.]
Have you ever sent a letter? [pointed questioning didn't come naturally to him: instead, it's quiet, a tip in the direction of understanding. can't relax, can't smooth the tension from his shoulders, can't do anything directly but can and does finally step forward toward the stoop, perching on its edge as if ready to bolt back up at any time.]
[-- even after he asked that question, the second he sat down,]
It's not the same.
[couldn't even know if the message reached them. and no words replaced physical action.]
[ Once upon a time, it would have gone against Noh-Varr's nature, as well. But that part of him, the part that railed and bucked against an imperfect system, has since been stamped down by loss of agency, loss of structure, the loss of everything he every held dear. The CDC gives him a chance to get that back.
To Hinata, the idea of structure like the CDC must feel extraordinarily alien, but to Noh-Varr, it's the closest thing to a Kree ship he can get outside of his homeworld, from which he's been banished. To have known a collectivist culture and been cut off from it is painful, and he yearns for that with an almost physical longing.
It's what makes it so difficult for him to abandon his origins no matter how much he professes to love Earth. It's what makes it so easy to accept what the CDC does and the way they do it. Because world-destroying isn't just the CDC's purview, and they can't take anything away from him that would feel worse than what he's already mourned. ]
It isn't, is it?
[ Sending a letter. It would be intercepted. Would it even reach them, on that patrol ship? Is that patrol ship even in this universe? This dimension? Too many variables. And besides...
He doesn't reach out to touch Hinata directly; his presence is instead felt through a gentle cant of his head, letting the top of the younger man's head graze against his jaw. It's soft. ]
I haven't sent a letter. [ A beat, then, more honestly: ] I wouldn't know what to write.
[ Hinata can't see it, but there's a rueful smile on his face. Noh-Varr has never been a good communicator. ]
[for all his trying, soft continues to fit Hinata well.]
[alien: lonely and isolating, which Noh-Varr knew far more of in comparison to the high schooler that experienced it only in schoolyard bullying and you like volleyball? why not soccer? until, of course, the CDC. he was one of the largest liabilities (though if those new recruits were somewhere in space, that--- didn't bare thinking of). it grew harder and harder not to notice the thought in other's faces.]
[but if he was a liability, why had Nic...]
[--- soft was a good word. felt the brush against his hair, paused; then, as any scared animal looking for safety, reciprocation - leaned to tuck his crown under Noh-Varr's chin, shoulders folding in, natural as can be. eyes continued to look out toward the ground, the rest of him yet strung with tension.]
You could say it.
[even if he didn't send it. that was part of venting.]
And then someone else writes it. I'd write it, [a beat,] but my spelling's pretty atrocious.
[ His initial touch having been accepted, Noh-Varr doesn't move for more, letting Hinata work out the tension in his small body by himself for a moment. Physicality, body-awareness, is an important skill in an athlete as in a soldier. After a few moments, he lets his hand climb, gently, undemanding, up the boy's back to rest between his shoulder blades. Giving warmth, and stability; these are things he can offer with ease. ]
Fiona told me I was the coolest alien, but then I didn't know there were mutant turtles, so she gave it to Garrus instead. If I could write her, I'd tell her she made the wrong choice.
[ It's a fond memory, and he isn't sure why he shares it, only that stewing in the negative has never accomplished anything in his life. He doesn't want to remember Fiona with fire. He wants to remember her with laughter and unflinching loyalty and all the things she put into the world. ]
And it's okay--I have a hard time writing well in English, so we're even.
[ His writing has been compared to 'chicken scratches', which he takes as no compliment at all, on account of chickens being an illiterate non-sentient species. He prefers keyboards and datapads and neural download, himself. ]
[if offered with ease, Hinata accepted it as easily as he could: shoulders drooping, back bowing slightly. hunching inward, growing smaller, but also--- sideways, the teenager inching closer, until his side and leg pressed seamlessly against the other's. warmth, physicality, presence - these things spoke just as loudly as words. if anything, they left larger impressions, with every point of connection something like comfort.]
[chicken-scratch and awful grammar. between them, they'd get nowhere close to a letter.]
[but then, that had already been settled.]
To Garrus? [a nice alien, sure, but cool? one side of Hinata's mouth quirked up. though it dropped not long after, the change in spirits came with it.] You should've double-checked her definition of cool.
[keep talking, his tone begged. if he would, if he could, if it didn't cause too much pain or if it caused just the right amount. keep remembering. keep sharing.]
[ Noh-Varr allows the proximity to creep along at whatever pace the younger boy is willing to set. Hinata is a warm stripe against his side, and eventually, Noh-Varr's hand migrates from Hinata's back to the ground, his body shifting in delicate increments, without pressure, curving to allow, if so desired, more connection. Still, he doesn't initiate, only invites the possibility. ]
I know, right? I'm definitely the coolest nonhuman here, if I do say so myself.
[ His tone is obviously a brag, chest puffed out lightly as he says it. He pulls away from Hinata long enough to smirk, then leans in like he's delivering a secret. ]
Between you and me--Fiona once called Garrus an 'artichoke dinosaur'.
[ He lets that sink in. ]
Does he look like an artichoke to you?
[ Garrus will forgive him, he thinks, if an embarrassing nickname can give a modicum of normalcy and laughter back to this human child. ]
[a good thing he doesn't immediately take the offer, though he has his nose to it like a dog on a scent - all wanting, all craving, all taking whatever comfort he might be able to find. Noh-Varr certainly held no qualms in giving it. in any case, he hesitates, which makes the presentation of Garrus's true appearance all the better. Hinata leans in to listen to the secret, expression fixed into vague curiousity --]
[pauses.]
[eyes widen.]
[and, a surprised, half-amused snort.]
He does.
[eyes up to Noh-Varr, exaggerated because it felt good and it felt good because he could.]
A giant, grey, ancient artichoke.
[pushing closer once again, head raising - better, it's better - he hrmphs, albeit quietly. he knows it's clear in hindsight, but he hadn't been thinking before and anyway, people tended to smile when he stated the obvious, and that was part of this point.]
She was doing it to spite you, wasn't she. Calling Garrus the cool one.
[ Mission accomplished, Noh-Varr thinks, when Hinata's expression shifts from hesitation to bewilderment. He settles back into his former pose, allowing for contact again. ]
Ancient? I wouldn't go that far. [ Though it reminds Noh-Varr of Hibari calling Garrus 'old man' and, privately, he agrees that the turian probably acts old enough to deserve the comparison. ]
Hibari called him a can opener, once. Maybe because of his mouth-plates? [ He motions around his own mouth, definitely free of any metallic patina. ]
As for spite, maybe, probably--she never did tell me, in the end. [ His smile turns rueful, contemplative. Before she died, he doesn't say. ]
[on the opening, in he tucked himself: a learner by doing, a creature of scant book smarts, it was a wonder what touch managed to communicate. something far stronger than words, to be sure: safety, ease, friendliness.]
[the small body against Noh-Varr's side tensed taut as a strung bowstring the second Hibari passed the other's lips.]
[two steps forward, five back.]
[after a terse, silent second -]
Why were you in competition with Garrus, anyway?
[voice a touch flatter, but it's with obvious effort to continue forward.]
[ It's hard not to notice the trigger word, when it creates such a sharp, remarkable reaction in Hinata. Noh-Varr's eyes slide sideways towards the other recruit, but his head doesn't fully follow the movement, perhaps to preserve the desire for normalcy. Noh-Varr is willing to act like nothing happened. ]
Probably because Garrus and I were friends, and both of us were her friends--maybe two of the only aliens she knew on the ship. [ He shrugs gently, unassuming. ] I do like him. He's loyal, dedicated, competent. Noble, you could say.
[ His voice takes on a wistful quality as he speaks, though he doesn't bother expanding on the sentiment. It's now that his face slides to Hinata. ]
Did you know he'd never had pancakes before coming here? Horrible oversight. I had to order some Turian-appropriate flour mix from the shopping channel just to get him to try.
[small (big) blessings. easing his way back into the normalcy, head and eyes cast low, mind focused on the expansion and contraction of his lungs with every breath. split his thoughts when Noh-Varr continued, though he realized he'd missed something when the first words he caught was aliens she knew on the ship.]
[a blink.]
[Garrus and Noh-Varr were close friends, huh. the thought comes quick and passes even faster into something warmer. the people left behind, huh. the pancake story startles a huff of a laugh out of him, amusement bubbling up despite himself.]
How'd they taste? [-- he means,] You shared them, right? You must've tried a bite.
[ He recalls the memory exactly; it's a very pleasant one from Ajna. Good food in good company; the actual dough of the pancakes in the few bites he'd stolen from Garrus' plate had tasted slightly more floury, the 'maple' syrup some kind of obviously alien citrus that was close-but-not-quite-there. The sun that peeked into the rover through the tiny windows, and lit up the rims of their plates. Trying to make pancakes in Garrus' tiny wall oven. ]
I'm not entirely sure how Garrus's allergy works, I'm not a biologist, but the 'maple syrup' I ordered for him was some alien knock-off, presumably safe for him to consume. The pancakes were slightly more dense than mine.
[ He grins. ]
But I made them, so of course they were excellent. Pancakes are my favorite Earth food.
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[the last time he'd seen the man like this was by a campfire in a frozen tundra. they'd barely known each other - but that didn't matter when sent so far from the familiar, scared and alone. the impression of the other being something strong and impressive hadn't faded, but it had gained some nostalgia. as with all memories, it transformed into something larger than it had been.]
[or perhaps Noh-Varr simply was that grand, even in grief. Hinata rarely felt things at less than one-hundred-percent.]
I'm tired of listening to myself.
[despite what the offer had been--- those are the words that slip out of his mouth. he still doesn't draw closer.]
Why don't you vent?
[if he said he had nothing worth saying - Hinata would call bullshit.]
no subject
It would be easy to say something like my life makes more sense here than it ever did before or it's in my nature to fall in or I wish I knew how to make better choices, but the desire passes quickly. Hinata doesn't need to know all his failings, and he shouldn't want to share them. He suspects the human would have difficulty understanding, or that the lack of sympathy would cause him distress when it's unneeded. Somewhere inside himself he doesn't want Hinata to know how human he is.
It isn't that Noh-Varr isn't frustrated, or that he copes well with losing people. It's that he's gotten so used to it he can't even summon up the indignation anymore. It took a lot of suffering to make him this way. He doesn't want that for Hinata.
Instead, what he offers is: ]
I just wish we'd be allowed to say goodbye, before they're sent away.
[ The deaths--they weigh on him. Fiona especially. She was just a human. A completely normal human. He could have, should have looked out for her more. But it's the transfers that gut him, knowing the others are out there, just out of reach.
He motions beside himself; there's space left there. It's an open invitation; some people prefer to stand when they're angry. ]
no subject
[accepting that went against Hinata's very nature. and so - after raving, crying -- too much crying, newly embarrassing in the lack of humiliation he mustered over it - hearing his own simple, rehashed ideas that went nowhere again and again, told to concentrate on survival and a nebulous future--- he was sick of it.]
[did the people he knew have any ideas? did they hold back because they thought he couldn't take it?]
[he was sick of wondering those ugly, isolating thoughts, too. it came as a relief to look outward, even if those people hurt just as much as he.]
[momentary confusion (of course-- hell if he wasn't sick of that, too), a pinch between the eyebrows - there were burials this time - but then it clicks. the transfers.]
Have you ever sent a letter? [pointed questioning didn't come naturally to him: instead, it's quiet, a tip in the direction of understanding. can't relax, can't smooth the tension from his shoulders, can't do anything directly but can and does finally step forward toward the stoop, perching on its edge as if ready to bolt back up at any time.]
[-- even after he asked that question, the second he sat down,]
It's not the same.
[couldn't even know if the message reached them. and no words replaced physical action.]
no subject
To Hinata, the idea of structure like the CDC must feel extraordinarily alien, but to Noh-Varr, it's the closest thing to a Kree ship he can get outside of his homeworld, from which he's been banished. To have known a collectivist culture and been cut off from it is painful, and he yearns for that with an almost physical longing.
It's what makes it so difficult for him to abandon his origins no matter how much he professes to love Earth. It's what makes it so easy to accept what the CDC does and the way they do it. Because world-destroying isn't just the CDC's purview, and they can't take anything away from him that would feel worse than what he's already mourned. ]
It isn't, is it?
[ Sending a letter. It would be intercepted. Would it even reach them, on that patrol ship? Is that patrol ship even in this universe? This dimension? Too many variables. And besides...
He doesn't reach out to touch Hinata directly; his presence is instead felt through a gentle cant of his head, letting the top of the younger man's head graze against his jaw. It's soft. ]
I haven't sent a letter. [ A beat, then, more honestly: ] I wouldn't know what to write.
[ Hinata can't see it, but there's a rueful smile on his face. Noh-Varr has never been a good communicator. ]
no subject
[alien: lonely and isolating, which Noh-Varr knew far more of in comparison to the high schooler that experienced it only in schoolyard bullying and you like volleyball? why not soccer? until, of course, the CDC. he was one of the largest liabilities (though if those new recruits were somewhere in space, that--- didn't bare thinking of). it grew harder and harder not to notice the thought in other's faces.]
[but if he was a liability, why had Nic...]
[--- soft was a good word. felt the brush against his hair, paused; then, as any scared animal looking for safety, reciprocation - leaned to tuck his crown under Noh-Varr's chin, shoulders folding in, natural as can be. eyes continued to look out toward the ground, the rest of him yet strung with tension.]
You could say it.
[even if he didn't send it. that was part of venting.]
And then someone else writes it. I'd write it, [a beat,] but my spelling's pretty atrocious.
no subject
Fiona told me I was the coolest alien, but then I didn't know there were mutant turtles, so she gave it to Garrus instead. If I could write her, I'd tell her she made the wrong choice.
[ It's a fond memory, and he isn't sure why he shares it, only that stewing in the negative has never accomplished anything in his life. He doesn't want to remember Fiona with fire. He wants to remember her with laughter and unflinching loyalty and all the things she put into the world. ]
And it's okay--I have a hard time writing well in English, so we're even.
[ His writing has been compared to 'chicken scratches', which he takes as no compliment at all, on account of chickens being an illiterate non-sentient species. He prefers keyboards and datapads and neural download, himself. ]
no subject
[chicken-scratch and awful grammar. between them, they'd get nowhere close to a letter.]
[but then, that had already been settled.]
To Garrus? [a nice alien, sure, but cool? one side of Hinata's mouth quirked up. though it dropped not long after, the change in spirits came with it.] You should've double-checked her definition of cool.
[keep talking, his tone begged. if he would, if he could, if it didn't cause too much pain or if it caused just the right amount. keep remembering. keep sharing.]
no subject
I know, right? I'm definitely the coolest nonhuman here, if I do say so myself.
[ His tone is obviously a brag, chest puffed out lightly as he says it. He pulls away from Hinata long enough to smirk, then leans in like he's delivering a secret. ]
Between you and me--Fiona once called Garrus an 'artichoke dinosaur'.
[ He lets that sink in. ]
Does he look like an artichoke to you?
[ Garrus will forgive him, he thinks, if an embarrassing nickname can give a modicum of normalcy and laughter back to this human child. ]
no subject
[pauses.]
[eyes widen.]
[and, a surprised, half-amused snort.]
He does.
[eyes up to Noh-Varr, exaggerated because it felt good and it felt good because he could.]
A giant, grey, ancient artichoke.
[pushing closer once again, head raising - better, it's better - he hrmphs, albeit quietly. he knows it's clear in hindsight, but he hadn't been thinking before and anyway, people tended to smile when he stated the obvious, and that was part of this point.]
She was doing it to spite you, wasn't she. Calling Garrus the cool one.
no subject
Ancient? I wouldn't go that far. [ Though it reminds Noh-Varr of Hibari calling Garrus 'old man' and, privately, he agrees that the turian probably acts old enough to deserve the comparison. ]
Hibari called him a can opener, once. Maybe because of his mouth-plates? [ He motions around his own mouth, definitely free of any metallic patina. ]
As for spite, maybe, probably--she never did tell me, in the end. [ His smile turns rueful, contemplative. Before she died, he doesn't say. ]
no subject
[the small body against Noh-Varr's side tensed taut as a strung bowstring the second Hibari passed the other's lips.]
[two steps forward, five back.]
[after a terse, silent second -]
Why were you in competition with Garrus, anyway?
[voice a touch flatter, but it's with obvious effort to continue forward.]
no subject
Probably because Garrus and I were friends, and both of us were her friends--maybe two of the only aliens she knew on the ship. [ He shrugs gently, unassuming. ] I do like him. He's loyal, dedicated, competent. Noble, you could say.
[ His voice takes on a wistful quality as he speaks, though he doesn't bother expanding on the sentiment. It's now that his face slides to Hinata. ]
Did you know he'd never had pancakes before coming here? Horrible oversight. I had to order some Turian-appropriate flour mix from the shopping channel just to get him to try.
no subject
[a blink.]
[Garrus and Noh-Varr were close friends, huh. the thought comes quick and passes even faster into something warmer. the people left behind, huh. the pancake story startles a huff of a laugh out of him, amusement bubbling up despite himself.]
How'd they taste? [-- he means,] You shared them, right? You must've tried a bite.
no subject
I'm not entirely sure how Garrus's allergy works, I'm not a biologist, but the 'maple syrup' I ordered for him was some alien knock-off, presumably safe for him to consume. The pancakes were slightly more dense than mine.
[ He grins. ]
But I made them, so of course they were excellent. Pancakes are my favorite Earth food.