It used to be so easy...

[soundfivebitch]

They'd got back late the night before.

It had been a long sojourn out into the world, but not a bad one. They'd been gone for over a month, and hadn't got into too much trouble, considering. Okay, so they'd met the Ryoka berserker and his fiends again, and failed to take them out, again, and Grimmjow had been scarred for his troubles, but that was pretty good going, for them. Technically, they were supposed to be out for Grimmjow's rehabilitation anyway. Grimmjow was only supposed to be getting back to fitness from the injuries he'd received when they'd met the Ryoka with Nel in tow, but he'd acquired another injury to work off. Not that anyone had explained that to Aizen, yet. That was going to be a fun job for Grimmjow and Yylfordt, later.

They'd also caught up with Kadaj, and ironed things out with him, and he'd met up with them a few times since. His hair had got too long, since he'd neglected to get it cut, but it wasn't as long as his bankai made his hair, now, and he'd matured a lot. It was a little bit frightening, really. Kadaj had been gone ever since the Midgar thing, and he'd grown up in that timespan, which at once felt like it had been forever, and like it had been barely weeks ago.

When they'd figured they probably couldn't, or shouldn't, put off going back any longer, they'd told Kadaj over the phone. They couldn't make him come back, but their employers could definitely demand their own returns. Plus they'd left Apache behind, because taking her was pushing it, and Tayuya missed her, even if Yylfordt pretended he didn't.

It had been too late for reunions when they had got back. Tayuya, Grimmjow, and Yylfordt had simply waltzed in, grabbed something to eat, and gone to bed.

It hadn't been early when Tayuya had woken up. She wasn't a morning person anyway, but she'd got up, showered, ended up sleeping for another hour, and then got dressed and made her way to the kitchen.

Now she was paying attention, the Palace felt different. There were new people here, again. They'd known someone was coming to take over the laboratories because Szayel had been told he couldn't have them. Tayuya was interested in who it was, only because they'd taken over her old home.

She hadn't reported to Kuja yet, either. She wasn't in a hurry. He'd know she was back, and the only information she had to give him consisted of 'Met Kadaj, he's okay, needs a haircut when you see him again though'. The important shit, naturally. She'd let Kadaj tell him about his bankai in his own time, and on his own terms. Kuja might want to know about the fights, but Kuja was less invested in the performance of the Ryoka versus Arrancar than Orochimaru had been, so he probably wouldn't want details of power levels and specific movesets employed.

She entered the kitchen looking freshly laundered and grumpy, because she needed caffeine to live, and something to eat. The room wasn't empty, and Tayuya waved at Apache as she schlepped her way to the kettle for caffeine.

Apache must have been so fucking bored, Tayuya thought. She knew she was when the Arrancar all fucked off on missions and she got left behind. At least she had Nel, though.

Comments

[declaregamuza]

Nel nodded, circling her hands around her own cup of tea, which was still too hot to contemplate drinking. It sounded like it had become an awful, bitter, tense situation for Even. Ienzo had got out earlier, and Even had tried to tough it out because....

Because why? Because he'd been married? Because some part of him was still trying to make the relationship work, against all reason and sense, from the sound of things.

She sighed. "You should have," she agreed. She wondered why the others had been content to take a traitor back. Was Axel, or Saix, that powerful and important to them? Were there other reasons Even couldn't comprehend?

"But it's hard to walk away from someone you've built a life with, especially when you've built it somewhere strange, so he's part of all you know about living there," she said, quietly, and gently.

She couldn't guess at why Saix had reconciled with Axel, but it had gone deeper than mere reconciliation from what she'd seen. Maybe the rift hadn't been that deep for them, or, more likely, the friendship before it had just been that strong.

"You're allowed to be hurt and angry, Even," she told him, with a faint, sorrowful smile. "You're even allowed to be bitter. You stayed there much longer than was good for you."

[thechillyacademic]

"I know," he said, frowning a little. "I..." he shook his head, re-thinking what he'd been about to say, "know."

He did, really. He should have given up on the entire mess of a situation earlier than he had. Their reasons for getting together hadn't been logical and their reasons for staying together had been less so.

He took a long breath, a little unsteady at the end, and blew it out as a deep sigh. It had all been a mess.

[declaregamuza]

Nel bit her lip and put her hand on Even's arm, squeezing it gently. She felt a wave of sympathy for him; it obviously still hurt, a lot.

"You still care for him, don't you?" She asked, although it was barely a question. Even was too obviously upset by it all, there was too much hurt and betrayal there for him not to care. Maybe it wasn't love, at least not any more, but you didn't get this upset by the actions of someone you didn't care about.

Even really hadn't been having a good year, from the sound of it.

[thechillyacademic]

"I ...just thought he cared more about me," he huffed, closing his eyes.

He wasn't quite willing to admit more than that, but he looked at Neliel, nearly sadly, the frustration gone from his face. He felt like he'd been betrayed for Axel again and, really, he knew that he had. Even so, he was hardly innocent and it would never had worked long term, but after he'd left in a fit of anger he'd had time to sit and think, both at Daguerreo and the Palace.

With the anger gone, it did hurt, in a strange way. Emotional pain wasn't something he was accustomed to. It made him feel sick sometimes and nearly empty at others, but not in the same way as he had when he'd had no heart. He wouldn't go as far as saying that that was preferable, but it was a close run thing.

He knew that he'd never forgive him, not after that, but it didn't make things any easier.

"I don't know why people open themselves up for this nonsense," he said, tracing the handle of his cup with one finger. "I wish I never had."

[declaregamuza]

Nel smiled at what Even said. Her amusement didn't come at his expense, as such, but she'd been through, and comforted enough other people through bitter break ups to know where that kind of sentiment originated.

"It's part of living," she said, sympathetically. Finding something, or someone, that made you feel that happy also gave them the power to hurt you, and the inevitability that it would happen, one way or another. "Normally I'd say that what you need is a night out and some airheaded prettyboy to get your leg over," she said, cheerfully, "but you're not quite the type for that." She smiled, softly. "It does help you get past the hurt, though."

[thechillyacademic]

Even, who had brought his cup to his lips for a sip of tea, coughed when Neliel said that, looking scandalised.

"Ah," he shook his head and sipped his tea properly. "No. Saix was more than enough experience for me, thank you."

That particular aspect of the relationship was often a point of contention anyway.

He took a bigger sip of his tea and put the cup back down. He'd get over it, all of it, the indignity and the pain and the humiliation and the rest of it, in time. Without that.

[declaregamuza]

Nel had grinned broadly at Even's scandalised expression. It was fairly close to the reaction she'd expected, so she allowed herself a grin at it.

She had to tilt her head at what he said, however. "Do you mean he was enough experience with airheaded prettyboys," she began, "or enough," she hesitated slightly before plowing on, "relationship experience?"

[thechillyacademic]

Even shook his head at the grin and gave his eyes a surprisingly good-natured roll. She was winding him up. That was nice, really. He sort of had a reputation for being bad tempered, so her not being afraid to do that was obviously a good sign.

He raised his eyebrows at her question, though.

"Both," he said. "That can't be a surprise, surely."

[declaregamuza]

Nel wasn't sure what to say at first, and she looked at Even, trying to find the words.

"It is," she said, eventually. And then she groaned, her shoulders sagging, "Gods, no wonder you're so hurt. He was your first, and this is how it ends?" She grimaced. Even's first serious relationship, first emotional connection that hadn't been platonic, had ended with him resenting the other person, and that person turning his back on him as if Even was nothing. Stuff like that gave some people a complex.

She shook her head. "Don't get me wrong, you seem like the driven type that hasn't had much time for relationships, but," she frowned, and looked at Even, "I suppose it didn't occur to me that you'd always taken a book to bed instead of another person, before him." She offered him an awkward smile with a hint of amusement, softening the blow of essentially calling him a giant nerd. She expected, somehow, he'd heard that before.

[thechillyacademic]

Even gave a bit of a smile, despite himself. Knowing that somebody was actually surprised that there'd only ever been one person in his life was oddly comforting, somehow. It made him feel a bit better.

"Before everything happened I was always so busy," he said, finishing his cup of tea. "Research, long hours, raising a child. I always considered relationships to be the pursuit of people with more time on their hands than I did and less interesting things to occupy their thoughts."

He pushed back his hair, thinking back to Radiant Garden. It had been true of all of them, really. None had ever bothered to go after romantic entanglements, not even the guards, not really. They had all been too driven towards greater things.

"Then the opportunity presented itself and I suppose I couldn't help it," he said, sounding awkward, and a little guilty, though he couldn't quite identify why. "I was attracted to Saix and ... I suppose we threw caution to the wind. Having the ability to feel after so long without made everything rather overwhelming."

It helped if he rationalised it.

[declaregamuza]

Nel looked at Even sharply when he mentioned raising a child, confusion etched across her face, but she kept quiet because the next thing he mentioned was that part about having the ability to feel again, and she had just as many questions about that. It was the second time he'd mentioned it.

"Sorry," she said, looking at him seriously, "I have to ask: What do you mean 'being able to feel after so long'?" As statements went it was perplexing; he said it so casually, as if it was the expected state of things. "And," she faltered, "I had no idea you'd raised a child." She sounded stunned, in part because she was.

Even didn't seem the fatherly type, that was for sure.

[thechillyacademic]

Even wondered if he'd said too much, but he could hardly be the first one to mention that, surely?

"It was the result of our ... experiments," he said, not wanting to give away any real detail. Luckily, with his haughty attitude, it could as easily have been a reluctance to explain intricate scientific procedures to a layman as a certain amount of caginess. "They were regrettable, but essentially rendered us incapable of feeling. We ended up dedicating a significant amount of time to regaining the ability."

And that was a whole lot of fun when, along with their feelings, they had lost their morals as well.

"When we arrived here, we discovered that we were complete again," he wrinkled his nose. "For lack of a better way to put it."

After his explanation, which he waved away with a lazy flick of a hand, he addressed her other comment.

"Mm," he murmured. "Ienzo. He was orphaned and taken into our care. The job of caring for him was intended to be a group effort, but I spent the most time with him."

He didn't seem surprised that Ienzo himself hadn't mentioned this fact.

[declaregamuza]

Even's explanation about the lack of feeling didn't make much sense to Nel. She didn't know what their experiments were, or how it could lead to losing emotions, and she gave the subject up as something you probably had to be a Ryoka to understand. Marluxia hadn't mentioned experiments, although he'd spoken of Even and Ienzo highly as scientists. There were some things, she decided, that those native to Spira didn't need to know.

She sat up a little when he brought up Ienzo, and then closed her eyes, and frowned. "That's why he gets on with Ulquiorra," she said, with a sigh. "He was orphaned too," she explained, softly, meeting Even's eyes.

She shook her head, then. "Ienzo never mentioned that you raised him," she told Even, with a rueful smile. Ienzo was a bit of a stuck up snot, really, fond of him though Nel was, so it wasn't much of a surprise that he hadn't admitted to that. She wondered, vaguely, if he'd told Ulquiorra.

[thechillyacademic]

"Of course he didn't," he said, very nearly laughing at the mere notion of Ienzo admitting that to anybody.

It didn't surprise him in the least. It didn't hurt him, either. A lot had gone on since he'd had to take the young orphan under his wing, so much that the entire subject usually got ignored altogether, even in company that knew full well that he had done it.

"I expect he finds it embarrassing," he said, offhandedly.

[declaregamuza]

"Well," said Nel, with a slightly mean smirk as she raised her cup of tea to her lips, "I suppose he'd feel awkward acknowledging that you know what toy he used to sleep with."

She sipped her tea. Her own was still hot because she wasn't Even, and wasn't ice elemental, and didn't cheat on that front. It was palatable, however, and she put it down again, maintaining her evil grin. "And probably bought his underwear for him, once upon a time. He does put a lot of work into appearing controlled and aloof."

Knowing that Even knew which superhero, or equivalent, he liked on his underpants as a child must have made that difficult.

[thechillyacademic]

"Mmm," Even said, giving a short laugh, amused despite their earlier conversation. "It is rather at odds with his genius, isn't it?"

There was nothing like personal, childhood details to make a child prodigy feel embarrassed, Even thought. It wasn't like he had any other failings he could be awkward about, but no matter what Ienzo achieved, in the past or on this world, Even would always know that was once so afraid of a storm that he ran crying to Even's room in the middle of the night and had to be calmed. That had been a turn out for the books, too. The boy was usually so calm and quiet.

[declaregamuza]

"I don't know about it being at odds with his genius," Nel said, smirk firmly in position, "but it's definitely at odds with the genius he wants to be seen as."

She found it cute, if she was honest. Ienzo was smart, scarily so, but he was also just a little bit immature. Immature enough to be preoccupied with being viewed as mature. He could probably do with being patted on the head and sent to bed with hot chocolate more often.

She was glad to have lifted Even out of his mood, too. He was much less tense now; getting at least some of it off his chest had helped a little, then.