14th roar [ text ]

[adamant]

[ private text message to Rinoa Heartilly: ]

Are you doing alright?

[ SO AWKWARD. The wonderful thing about text is that it doesn't involve talking to people! Yeah. ]

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[adamant]

[ His expression darkens. It's not every day you get to talk to your deceased ex from another dimension. ]

Yeah. [ He exhales softly through his nose, lost in an old memory. At that question--intellectually, he knows he had nothing to do with it, he's been told it wasn't his fault enough times. That doesn't change how he might feel about it. ] My fault I couldn't do anything about it.

[angelicdelights.livejournal.com]

[ She may know nothing about the situation, and technically he'd been trying to cheer her up, but that kind of guilt didn't sound healthy. ]

It wasn't your responsibility to take care of me, though. I mean....I was—am?—supposed to protect myself, too. So if I got into a situation I couldn't handle....that's my fault.

[ Whatever happened....she can't believe that he would be at fault. ]

[adamant]

[ He bites his lip. Of all the ways he might have imagined this playing out in his head, this wasn't one of them. He imagined himself more put-together, his thoughts in less of a jumble. But being around her is something he's only just started forcing himself to do; just the sight of her, so small and young, strikes chords in him that have been dormant in the same raw state they'd been left in a decade ago. Leon's mind urges him backwards, away from the inevitable emotional fallout of this conversation. Now isn't the time, either for him or for her.

He shakes his head a bit and looks back to her worried face. He couldn't protect her then, and now he can't even make her smile. What good is he? ] It was years ago. It's in the past, now. [ His tone is dismissive, final. He's given her the answer she was looking for, and it's time to move on. Leon, you coward. ] Let's get this stuff sorted.

[ He motions to Quistis' pack, lying still unopened on the bed. He'd rather deal with Rinoa's problems than his own, but that's typical. He'd face down a thousand Heartless before he'd face his demons. ]

[angelicdelights.livejournal.com]

Wait.

[ Hold on one second, Buster. She's not ready to let this topic drop. ]

Can I ask....how it happened?

[ Call it morbid curiosity or whatever, but she just....needs to know. And then they can get back to the topic at hand. ]