deercountry | 15 . JOHNUARY

Bunch of shit, [ is Robby's dry reply. He isn't -- and hasn't -- been gung-ho about this trip, or moving with any dedicated purpose. On the subject of gathering the mushrooms for the Patrons, he's been a shrug and a 'Sure', and it's giving him something to take part with ... some aim.

But it's clearly not his purpose for being here. John can have his fun with the vines, while Robby will take the job of carefully extracting the delicate mushroom; but not without a pause, a sideways glance. ]

Didn't know you were into botany and necromancy.

[ Very funny. ]

I'm a man of many talents.

[ Still, he steps away from the vines, attention dropped and still pointedly ignoring the whispers. ]

Didn't figure you for much of a gardener, either. Fetch quest, huh?

God. [ It's an instant reaction to this being called a fetch quest, because it is, and Robby needs a second to maybe die a little on the inside for what his life has become. ]

Yeah, fetch quest, [ he finally replies dryly. ] Or more like learning experience. Someone else wanted to come, [ and so I did too, is left implied, ] so I might as well enjoy it.

[ He sounds like he's enjoying it. But he's managed to get the mushroom to rest carefully on his palm, removed from the tree. ]

Nevermind might give us something useful again, [ he adds with a shrug. He'll take shit for doing shit. ]

Fair enough.

[ He tips his head in acknowledgment, patient as Robby looks after the mushroom. ]

I've never been his biggest fan, personally. A few too many mandatory boat rides. And I'd hoped for a little more sense of humor.

[ Deeply unfair that the ravens won't tolerate his Poe jokes. ]

Any of them got a sense of humour?

[ Said like Robby doesn't believe it, but he's also not spoken to any of them (well, save Cloverfield). But that's the thing--who would know?

(who would want to know.) ]

Not that I've found yet. Though, actually... [ He tips his head in thought, rueful. ] The Moss King. March's guy. He made us all play Jumanji, then handed out novelty T-shirts.

[ He sounds like he respects it, but still loathes the guy. ]

...Huh. [ Okay, give Robby a second. ] You mean the movie? Where they get stuck in a jungle?

[ This is so more important than anything else. (It helps ignore the voices, too.) ]

That's the one.

[ He's gotten better at not looking like someone's stepping on his heart every time somebody here gets a reference. John still scrubs a hand back through his hair, weary. ]

Big jungle, giant bugs, sometimes you get turned into a lizard... that kind of thing. Keep an eye out in the spring.

Okay. [ Yeah, alright. That's good advice, since he's never actually seen the movies. But that does make him think, the mushroom bag now hanging at his side. ]

Know if Kiriona's seen those?

[ Robby knows they live in the same house -- that's about it. ]

[ He goes still, hand frozen in his hair. He drops it slowly, and says, gone strangely distant: ]

I don't know that she has.

[ He doesn't exactly pull up old movies over dinner. This is touchy ground. ]

[ Robby catches the shift this time, a tone of voice he's well-acquainted with, familiar in the familial sense. ]

...You're her dad. [ It's a question, yet not, slowly stated after a pause. A fact he wasn't sure of just a few seconds ago, hadn't even guessed at, but now--he's fairly sure.

And he knows the type. ]

[ He can read the slow judgment in that tone, in the way Robby looks at him. ]

Not a very good one.

[ His tone is wry, though not really guilty. He looks back at Robby, faintly tired. ]

I wasn't around when she was a kid. Long story. You could say her mom and I never really got along.

[ His hum sounds like a scoff. ]

I'd say I know that story, but yours has more skeletons in it. [ The long story part, probably. ]

How's it going now? [ Colour him curious, seeing this from another family unit. He almost wants to ask, 'You trying?', but he's not feeling that asshole-ish towards his own dad, currently. ] She told me something about a flashy network post. I missed it.

[ Did it have dancing skeletons? Maybe he got that from somewhere else. ]

Oh, yeah. [ He tips his head in what's nearly a wince, more tired by the moment. ] For the best, really. We'd been gone a while, from our perspective... Had to do a bit of a re-introduction, and I may have gotten carried away with it.

[ As to how it's going, John is silent a moment, then seems to pick over the words carefully: ]

We've been meeting each other for the first time, you know? Trying to start something new. Not an easy transition on either of us, I guess.

Being here has thrown a few wrenches in.

[ There is no sufficient language for how well they are not handling their dead, traitor loved ones waiting for them on the shore. ]

[ He hums, shortly. ]

Depends. ...Maybe. [ His mind really isn't entirely on them, is it? If he hadn't come here, he'd have the dad who told him they'd fix this, and would that have made a difference? If that was the one he'd met here.

Robby's looking at the ground between them, a conflicted feeling shuffling around in his chest. But he looks over at John, tentatively. ]

Want some advice from a guy whose dad wasn't around most of his life and still kinda sucks at being a dad? [ A pause, a one-shouldered shrug. The words are soft, careful, neither a joke nor harsh. ] But we're trying.

[ John looks back at him, faintly and openly surprised. It subsides to the same weary distance, but he tips his head in permission. ]

Shoot.

[ Robby watches him, even as the surprise fades; wondering what good this might do (is this really just for himself?), but he offered, so: ]

Talking, and doing stuff with them? Goes a long way than waiting on them to make the first move or looking for excuses to do anything instead of just doing them. You can be in the same house as someone and feel like the last person they have time for. You sit there wondering if they actually love you, or they just feel like they have to, or put up with you 'cause those are the rules, right? Except they spend enough time tip-toeing around you or looking for every easy way out, and yeah, you know they're scared of you -- and that's real great when they're getting along great with everyone else but you.

That means there's got to be something wrong with you.

[ ...okay, so he never said anything about keeping bitterness out. But this isn't just some rant, and so: ]

I don't know if Kiriona thinks like that, or if any of that's like what's going on between you and her, but I know she's been at odds with her friends since coming back. And I know the last thing dads want to do is to actually talk to their kids, or actually do anything to change the status quo. [ Sorry, dad. But Robby looks at John now, whatever expression he wears. Brows furrowing slightly. ]

Do you know what her hobbies are? What she likes to get up to? Talked to her about being--undead, or whatever being a family means to you?

[ Ouch. From the start, this is a familiar shape of things: he knows it hasn't been great, in their six months back home. He's tried— he really thinks he should get credit for trying, given where they started, given how many problems it would've solved to kill her outright— but he knows the way she goes still when he looks at her eyes. He knows he can't keep it off his face, all the things she makes him feel. Scared of her isn't far off, and she has only the vaguest shape of why.

John exhales a slow breath and raises a hand to worry his temple, his expression faraway. It's funny, having this conversation like what are her hobbies can coexist neatly with sorry all your parents murdered each other, that's got to be rough. As usual, there's no one around but him to get the joke. ]

Solid advice. [ Mostly inapplicable advice, but he can appreciate the effort. It's extremely telling advice, so he quirks that wry, raw smile at Robby in tired thanks. ] I might have some work to do there. Maybe it's time I think about doing it.

[ He pulled Kaworu out of the water. He wonders what she thinks of that, sometimes, now that he's remade her so that she can't drown. ]

How about yours? He's here in town?

[ Looking back at that smile, Robby wonders if John will do anything. People think about doing things all the time, and he can't help it: he doubts in subpar parents. He also doubts in having any particular sway, and why should he believe in having any in John?

A guy who looks like he should be sleeping with the dead than raising them.

But the guy saved him once, so call this an effort in repaying that. ]

Yep. [ Robby's expression doesn't shift on the re-direct, though he looks down once. ] I don't know what he thinks being a family is. I don't think even he knows.

[ 'I don't know, but I'll try' are words his dad likes to say. And he falls for them every time, waiting for a different result.

(He's really, really waiting.) ]

I'll let you know if I find out, [ he offers, nonchalant. ]

Well, I have some sympathy for that. It's never been crystal clear to me, either.

[ Robby lets him get away with the shift, and John doesn't press the issue. In moments like this the whole thing feels too absurd to bother with, but hey: it's not like he has many competing priorities, here. The weight of an unsteady empire has been shelved indefinitely. They have nothing but time. ]

Same to you. Thanks for the pep talk. I'll try to put it to good use.

Mm, [ he says, and while he could leave the subject at that- they have a whole city around them that's rather important- Robby can't help but ask... ]

One thing I don't get, though...if you're her dad, how come she barely knows what My Chemical Romance is, but you know what Jumanji is?

[ Clearly, the two are comparable. ]

[ It's unfair that he feels caught off-guard every time someone thinks to ask. John is silent a moment. ]

Like I said, she didn't grow up with me. [ His expression is wry because he knows that isn't the crux of it, but it's very nearly a good lie. ] Different cultural contexts, you know? Different worlds.

[ And his world has been dead a long time. ]

[ Ah- there was that other guy, wasn't there. It fits, though it's bizarre, but a lot of realities are bizarre in ways that Robby can't understand, so it's easy enough to go, ] Oh, [ in a way where he doesn't get it, but is pretending to.

Oh. Okay. ]

Real different worlds, [ is how he'll leave it, since--he's doesn't particularly want to pry. He gets that enough from other people with him and his dad. ]

--You got any feelings about this whole place? [ A safer topic, and he'll nod his head in direction of, well, the city in its entirety. ] Abandoned, doesn't look like there was a takeover. 'Cept the plants.

[ Are those the things people care to note when they wander into empty cities? ]

[ Robby lets it go, and he can see the kindness of that; it's an unexpected moment of relief in a world that seems to love grilling him. John tips his head in acknowledgment of the safer topic, the ease of a common enemy in the landscape itself. ]

If there was a takeover, [ he says, mild as a man remarking on the weather, ] I'm sure it was very spooky. Pthumerian infighting, probably.

[ He tips a hand to the mushrooms, and Robby here retrieving them. ]

The kind of thing they send us to deal with.

15 . JOHNUARY

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