magicisreal | Haven Inbox

[ He feels her tense and tremble, even feels the muscles of her wand arm move, but only hugs her a little tighter. ]

You don't have to figure it all out right away. You're safe out here -- mostly -- and you can rest and sort it out for as long as you want back at the house. Tsuna and I will get you there, don't you worry. Right, Tsuna?

[Stuff like this (hugging, intimacy, girls) always makes him feel uncomfortably embarrassed so he looks away again, blushing lightly. He doesn't move away, however, choosing to stick closer and offer comfort however he can.]

That's right. It's what we were trying to do until, uhm, [He fell.] things happened. And anyway we don't know what happened in there either, so we can worry about it later. It's... it's in the past now.

[The fragment of Rose screaming You don't understand people are dying is easier to bury with every passing minute. Morgan is lucky he doesn't have one of the Thorns through his ribs already. Maybe the raid is over; maybe she can pretend.]

You can't erase the past that way.

[Change it, force a timeline deviation, you could do that. Here in Haven, Rose cannot. She pushes weakly away from Morgan, who is holding tight enough that she can't go anywhere as it is, turning her head so she can narrow her eyes at Tsuna.

Rose is silent, looking at him, powerless to help or change anything about what happened in the convenience store, what's happening inside her head.]

[ Morgan lets her go when she pushes, but continues to kneel in front of her. ]

You can't erase it, no. And you shouldn't want to, either. Memories are important, no matter how painful they are! But they're in the past by definition -- and we're in the present now.

[ An oversimplification to most people, but to Morgan, it's a way of life. ]

[Tsuna nods, looking her squarely in the eyes. Polygonal-y, perhaps. Squares are too precise for someone like him.]

You don't need to erase it. If we erased the past, we wouldn't be who we are today, and I like us the way we are. [Then he adds, with a nervous note in his voice:] And I really like that we're all alive. Right now.

[So let's stay that way.]

[They echo her words and she's ready to fire; they come up with their own, alternate to her thinking, and she puts the wand down again. All the way down, as it happens, on the ground so she can hold her head between her hands again. Others are not so alive. She saw them die. Here they are trying to take her somewhere. Somewhere real?

The blackness is gone, for all she opened her arms to it in that unseen moment. There is only Rose to determine the truth.]

Until I can tell reality from hallucination, I am likely to try to hurt you. [Refuge in bleak honesty is no refuge at all. She shouldn't be so rattled. Rose Lalonde is better than that!]

[ He stands slowly and again offers his hand, just in case she's willing to take it. ]

Then we won't provoke you with any sudden moves. And even if you try, my resistance is nothing to sneeze at, ha!

[ Tactician genes. ]

[Taking cue from Morgan, Tsuna stands and holds out his hand. Two is better than one, and technically they could have gone with four, but that's a little weird.]

I don't mind, if it's you.

[A small lie. He does mind. A bit.

Juuuust a bit, but who likes pain anyway?]

Let's go home, Rose.

[This is the most incongruous thing yet and it fits with what the real Tsuna and Morgan are likely to do. Rose sighs and reaches for each extended hand. Once on her feet, she can stand well enough; at the first step she will almost go right down again.]

The day I refer to this wasteland prison as home, you both have permission to shoot me.

[ Be cheerful and optimistic until they give in, it never fails. Morgan beams when she accepts their help, and keeps on beaming even as he moves to support her. ]

Good thing you'd just come right back, huh? But I've always thought that home is where you feel safest and happiest. And our little house is that place! Things may get a little hectic, and sometimes we die horrible deaths, but gosh darn it, there's nothing quite like going home to our house full of friends.

[Tired and sore as he is, he still manages to beam back, crooked as always and hesitant in the corners.]

Right. Home isn't this place. Home is... you. Um, us!

[But seriously, no death please. Unlike Morgan, he'll ignore her little joke about shooting her. No way, no how, Rose.]

[Morgan is quite tall for Rose to hobble-wobble against, but he offers in his come-closer way and Rose refuses the option of embarrassing herself by trying to make it back to the spiral on her own. This time.]

How heartwarming. I may vaporize from the heat of it. [She almost said melt, which brought her recollection of the dream where she did melt, trapped inside her not-real house. Homes are dangerous places in which to be stuck.

Rose looks behind her at the convenience store and winces, grimacing.]

If we can't help them, we shouldn't stay.

There are plenty of others around for backup. Let's leave it to them.

[ He'll help her along like a mobile handrail, though Tsuna's height might be better suited for the job. ]

By the way, I hope you'll tell us the next time you join a dangerous raid. If things had turned out worse, we would've been worried about you.

[ As in, if things had turned out deadly. ]

[Tsuna doesn't know about you, Morgan, but he was worried anyway, and he didn't even know what or who he was worried for.

He shifts closer, letting go of her hand to offer her his shoulder. He's no stranger to hobbling, so this is fine with him. The sooner they get to the apartment, the better!]

Why didn't you tell us? And... why did you go in the first place?

It was something of a last-minute decision. [More resentment, this time at the implication that she needs to report to anyone. Nevertheless, she accepts Tsuna's offered shoulder, releasing Morgan's taller one.]

The better informed I am about Haven, the better any decisions I make will be. I was not informed of the true nature of that building before my entry, not in a way that could have prepared me properly.

The defenses in there would have to be a doozy. Once you get beyond the store, there's an entire spiral city! Of course, there'll be even more defenses between you and it -- mostly guards with guns, I understand -- so reaching the city itself is a tough task.

[ Sooo it's a suicide mission, basically. But one in the pursuit of knowledge...? ]

[Wait, back up -- ]

... There's a city inside the conbini????

There was a great deal of shooting; I can't verify a city one way or the other.

[The hobbling and hand-holding assistance gets to her. She isn't hurt beyond a good knocking-around or two, there is no reason to drag so.]

Nothing I saw inside was real, and yet everything was real.

Inside the what...?

[ what harry potter shit are you talkin about tsuna ]

Beyond the store. Through the back exit! Anyway, I'm not surprised they employed... hallucinations, it sounds like? It sounds like the kind of mind game they'd play.

[ The whole mom's-heart-in-him thing was a sterling example, after all. ]

[It takes him a moment to understand what Morgan's asking since it's common term where he's from.]

Ah, the conbini! The, uh, convenience store. Conbini... convenience! Get it?

[MAKES TOTAL SENSE]

I don't really get it though... How can something be real and not real at the same time?

[MAKES NO SENSE]

Go in and see for yourself.

[There's that brush of darkness again, a touch of something prehensile sidling along, there beneath her words.]

I don't recommend it, but I have learned that curtailing stupidity is ineffective.

[ Conbini... sure ok. Convenience store, sure ok?? He doesn't see what's so convenient about it though... ]

Tempting, but it's best not to go in without good cause.

[ He really is curious. But even if he's due for another death, he can't go running into it willy-nilly! Death has to work for it. ]

I hope someone's made it through again. It would be an experience reaching the city proper!

[The con in this conbini is the same one in pros and cons.]

Who in their right mind [sry Morgan] would be tempted!! Even I'm not that stupid... Definitely not tempted at all.

[AT ALL. Tsuna will just be content with the city in his head, the one that's very much like home.]

I hope everyone makes it through... [He feels really bad not being able to help, but at least they have Rose, mostly safe and mostly sound.]

[This conversation isn't helping her in content, but their form is impeccable and the levity probably does her good, if she cares to let it. At the very least, she's found her feet again and tries to tug her arm out of Tsuna's grasp.]

I'm not hurt, at least let me attempt to walk by myself.

Oh, but think of all the different sights there would be! Don't you ever get tired of seeing these same drab ruins day in and out? Sometimes, I think I could kill for a fresh, non-murderous change in scenery.

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there was no non-terrible way to make this joke

mmmmhm

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