deercountry | December Catch All

Jun works at the Roost, so he's a little surprised to see Waver walking in and trying to get himself drunk. He counts the glasses and sighs. Really? Why are adults like this?

"Hey. I think you've had enough." He taps the professor on the shoulder and crosses his arms, ignoring the pull from his stitches. "Besides, we only have so much alcohol."

Was it really so surprising, when Jun had recently called him out for his depressed tendencies? Waver looked up from his whiskey and worn little copy of the Illiad that he was hovering over, his eyes dark and wearied from the burdens of life.

"...Ordinarily I'm a cheap date," He muttered, and tucked a makeshift bookmark in between the pages while he gently closed the tome. It wasn't Iskandar's copy, but keeping any copy on hand felt... right.

"Jun." Waver commented. "I didn't realize you worked here. Aren't you a little young...?"

"I've seen cheaper." He replied without a hint of irony. Working here... he really had.

The question got a snort from him. "I live with the owner of the place. I'm not really touching the alcohol at all... just doing smaller tasks around the place. ... I didn't want him to go without any repayment for taking me in."

Everything was an exchange. Whether it was work or relationships or lives, everything had a certain calculable value - mostly. Being here had thrown that into chaos, but... he still didn't like getting things without repayment.

"Repaying debts is very good and all. It shows that you're quite the responsible lad. But..."

He tapped his long fingers on the table, ignoring how the flesh that stretched across his hands seemed a little more translucent than what was normal for someone that spent most of their time holed up in crowded libraries. It was the corruption starting to fizzle at his nerves, Waver knew.

The pain this storm of grief keened through him like the waves crashing on shore. He would work through it, but for the moment he just needed to sit with the feelings.

"You're young, yet." Waver said finally, as if that wasn't obvious.

"Don't forget to let yourself be a kid."

"No shit, Sherlock." Jun deadpanned, collecting up some of the glasses and then peeking over his own at the professor. "You're deflecting."

He let the man sit with that for a few moments while he returned the glasses to the bar and then walked back to the table, taking out a rag to clean up any dirty spots. "I'm doing what I can to enjoy things here, not that there's a ton of activities to be done that don't involve monsters or the risk of them.

"You're not a regular, and you don't seem like the type to drink your problems away normally. So what's actually going on here?" It's not like it's busy right now, so it's not like his dirty laundry is going to get aired in front of everyone.

It was a cold day in hell.

It had to be, because this was the second time in a month that he had been schooled by the same painfully insightful thirteen year old. Waver knew he had to expect it, but it still stung.

He nursed at his whiskey with a sulky look on his face. When Jun arrived, he decided it was time to relent.

"You're not wrong." He said in careful, measured tones. "I prefer not to make an embarrassment of myself in public, but I'm not opposed to liquor or wine every now and again. My Vileblood makes it hard to enjoy the drink unless I'm actually trying to make myself sick, so most of the time it's not worth it."

He sighed.

"I'm sorry. The most important person in my life went back to the sea recently. There was no note or warning. He was just... gone. This isn't the first time I've been left behind by him."

Jun waited expectantly for an answer, and... wasn't surprised at the one he got. Adults were always doing this - trying to find solutions to their problems at the bottom of a glass or the end of a cigarette. It wasn't like the problem would be any better once they were done, and impairing their senses just to try to figure something out was never going to be a good solution.

He tried to think of what to say that would be comforting, but... well. Waver didn't seem to be the type soothed by platitudes, and Jun wasn't one to give them. "He could come back." That was about as soft as he could get. "But even if he doesn't, do you think he'd want to see you moping like this? If one of the most important people in my life suddenly disappeared, I wouldn't -"

The boy paused. He'd thought Falco had abandoned him, even though he was comatose for several days. He set his jaw for a moment and took a breath. Getting frustrated wouldn't help anyone here. He counted to ten in his head - quickly, but enough time for a pause. He exhaled sharply and looked down. "... I wouldn't take it well either. But I know he'd want me to keep living on and not mourn him. I've seen enough mourning. It doesn't really help much, in the end - just makes your grief feel worse. The people I've seen deal with grief the best find a way to honor those they've lost and build something for the future."

He looked up at Waver again, meeting his gaze. "So? What are you going to build?"

Jun was right. Platitudes could only carry so much comfort for a man who was notorious for being the Scourge of Mage Society itself. Setting the glass down, he numbly looked up at Jun and stared for a moment-- as if momentarily perplexed.

"As if the tenured staff at the School of Mutter would allow a half corrupted Vileblood that has ventured into Fieldwork and steps one the toes of the Disciples to take a position in a lecture hall," He uttered, dryly. "As if the Disciples would allow the same half corrupted Vileblood that can shred their work with minimal effort into their ranks."

He shrugged-- and heaved a sigh.

"Sorry. That's not fair to you. I... have a possibility, but it hinges on helping another Vileblood folklorist uncover and renovate these ruins he discovered just in the woods."

In the middle of winter, when the both of them were dealing with their own simmering corruption. If he had a nickel for every time there was a depressed folklorist with vileblood and corruption problems, he would have two Nickles. Regardless...

"I see what you mean, Jun. I know there's a non-zero chance of him returning. But, this is the third time I've had to grieve for a future I had imagined with him that wasn't even certain. Each time has been hard in its own way, as well. This... isn't something you can just get used to."

"Then make them." It was a simple answer. "Make them see the logic behind allowing you in. And if they don't, they're stupid and you should make a better system yourself. And who the hell cares what your blood type is? One of the people I care about the most is a Vileblood. I don't give a shit."

He'd never understood the obsession about blood types in Japan and he didn't get the obsession with blood types in Trench. And at the last part he sighed, his voice dropping slightly. "I know. I know that grieving the future is hard. I - I was grieving my mother who I didn't even know was my adopted mother for... what, ten years? And then the mother who was my real mother. And my classmates, then friends, then my family... then someone who loved me. And then I had to grieve my own future that I'd never be able to face."

He knew. He knew what it was like to try to imagine a future with people and then have it snatched away. "It's not the same, I know. But... if you don't let yourself grieve then the best thing that will happen is that this place will use it against you. So... I get it." Hesitantly he reached out and put a small hand on Waver's shoulder, just resting there.

"... I know I'm 'just a kid' and that you probably don't want to 'burden' me with whatever you're going through but... at least talk to someone."

Edited 2022-12-22 04:55 (UTC)

Those admissions Jun made were haunting, and Waver thought back to Jun explaining about how his own hands were bloodied because there was no choice for him. Sighing, he relented.

"You probably understand these matters better than most adults," He admitted, once more feeling chagrinned about being lectured by a person he was old enough to be a father to. Waver shook his head. While imagining the future was hard during moments like these, he knew that he at least had one.

With it came a responsibility to do good by those who didn't.

"...Thanks, Jun. You're a good person, and certainly leagues wiser than most adults are."

"... I try. A lot of adults are morons who never got their heads yanked out of their asses. Even here, there's people who try to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything's fine and okay when it's not and it's not healthy to pretend that it is." Sure, Jun was prone to depression and bouts of feeling downright misanthropic, but he did try to acknowledge reality for what it was.

He let Waver sit with his thoughts for a few moments while he went over and came back with a glass of water. "I don't pretend to be a good person. I just... know how shit life can be and that in some ways I got off lucky." He could have been much worse off. He could have had so many more terrible things happen to him - it was almost like their little group ended up picked from some of the most miserable circumstances one could imagine.

~~Thanks, Kitoh.~~

Jun slid the water across the table to Waver. "... Mourning on a headache just makes things worse. Make sure you stay hydrated. You'll thank me when you wake up less sick tomorrow morning."

Sighing, Waver took a sip of the water. He knew Jun was right. Everything that the boy had said had been unequivocally correct-- and for a moment he felt hot with shame over adding more challenge's to Jun's already loaded plate.

"...Thanks,"

He said simply, and offered Jun a tired smile.

"I know you're right. I'm just another dumb adult that makes dumb decisions sometimes, and you deserve far more than any world has offered you so far."

It was in that moment that he knew what he had to do-- if nothing else, he needed to keep an eye on Jun...and certainly get him several books on marine life.

Jun just sighed and resisted the strong urge to punch Waver in the arm. The man just kept making it some tempting.

"You're a lot better than some adults I've seen." Considering Chizu, and the parents of some of the other pilots... the bar of Jun's standards for 'decent adult' was nearly underground. It was partially why the people here kept surprising him - and why he now felt so shitty for how he treated his adoptive father.

The boy glanced around and then sat across from Waver, hands carefully folded in front of him. "Of course you make dumb decisions. Everyone does, even adults. Especially adults in some cases. Mourning makes your brain get scrambled. It's how you handle it that's the issue. I've seen people get violent, people near drink themselves to death, and people who rose above it and made something out of it. Grieving doesn't have to be the end of something. It can be the start of something else."

In fairness, Waver was extremely punchable and he knew it.

"You really have seen a lot."

Waver sighed. Once again, he felt like it was a damn shame that Jun was wasted on his homeworld and nearly any other that he set foot on. Kids that savvy and bright rarely had good fortune.

"I solemnly swear that I will not get as bad as you're describing. I just-- need to set my sights on a realistic goal for now. Like not sleeping all day."

"Yes." There was no shame in his voice, just... maybe a bit of exhaustion.

He glanced away and sighed. "To be honest, I don't really know how to tell you how to drag yourself out of that kind of hole other than 'get friends'. But mine kind of ended up with me by chance, so I couldn't tell you a single thing about how to make friends." He looked back at the man and shook his head.

"But there's good people here, if you let yourself look. Sure, there's some shitty people too, but... a lot of the people here really are good."

"Yeah... they really are."

He smiled bitterly, and thought of his nearby neighbor in Cellar Door that had offered to be an ear and a shoulder for him if his depression became too much. Waver had taken that option, and was grateful for it.

"...Honestly, we're rather alike. Most of the people I've met in adulthood have been work contacts or associates that I needed to collaborate with on a project. That's very different from the classic idea of making friends."

A shrug. Waver heaved a tired sigh.

"I suppose I can frequent the Entertainment Feed more often. I did help the proprietor populate its on site video game offerings."

"And you'll likely meet other people there with the same interests." He paused, and then gave in. "What kind of video games?"

He wasn't really a gamer, but... video games were still fun...

December Catch All

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