Open 'verse RP [Open -- Separate threads fine]

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He'd come home out of some weird need to find his roots, again. Or something. At the current moment he couldn't remember. Souvenir shops lined the streets he roamed too long ago. The house had burned over three centuries before and even the alleys were swept now. There had been nothing to bury, and no money for more than a mass grave had there been, so there were no markers, nothing to see, nothing to kneel at.

Wandering into the new St. Paul's, built after he left, after the fire that took them, he nonetheless felt something settle. He sat in a pew for hours, trying to remember what it had felt like when he came home, saw this, sat here the first time, a different man. Not Matthew. Not Takezo Kensei. Something else, someone else. A man without country, time, family.

For a time, he'd thought to find it again, but now the dream seemed farther away than it had even when trapped in that cell, and he was cold.

It was well after dusk when he left. He found a pub, a table in a corner, and with a wry smile that cursed all the years in between, he ordered a whiskey and asked the bartender to leave the bottle, working to bury himself in the one thing left that had any familiarity or link to the old.

Comments

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

"I didn't need her for her power, carp, useful as I suppose it can be. I needed her for her vision. For her." He shrugged a little. "I don't know that I can explain it anymore. Perhaps just that...she believed. In me."

Adam watched him for a long time, then half smiled. "You sound like a therapist. I hear it's become a very popular profession these days."

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro's eyes are actually mischievous. "Believed in you? Like someone you knew before?"

He takes another drink. "I don't have the degree to be a therapist. Anyway my advice would probably always sound the same."

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Adam shoots him a slight glare and shrugs. "Perhaps."

"And what would that advice be?"

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro snickers a little. He's a little buzzed.

"'Don't worry, be happy'." He takes another drink.

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Adam's eyebrows go up a bit. He's more than a little buzzed, but having been locked up when the song came out, it means nothing.

"That's....um...good advice."

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro starts singing the song, off-key, until the bartender glares at him.

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Adam stares at him for a long moment, then, surprisingly, giggles.

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Hiro starts giggling with him.

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Adam can't quite believe he's giggling, but now that he is, he can't seem to stop, which makes him laugh harder.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Adam's giggling is making Hiro giggle harder. He is nearly doubled over on the stool.

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Adam's fairly sure he's never going to be able to catch his breath, as the giggles dissolve into absolute laughter until he can't remember what's so funny even.

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro's leaning on the bar, laughing so hard. He's not sure why he's laughing, but he's drunk enough to not care at all.

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The giggles turn into hiccups, and he has to stop then, because breathing just got even more difficult.

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Hiro is still laughing.

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Adam rested his head down on the bar, struggling to breathe.

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Hiro gulps in great lungfuls of air. "Are you all right?"

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Adam nods a little, still struggling for air, but nods.

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Hiro is still snickering, but he's definitely nowhere near as helplessly laughing as he was.

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"Oh, god..." Adam finally manages to gasp. "I don't even remember...the last time I laughed that hard."

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro thinks, opens his mouth, closes his mouth, then opens it again. "I can't remember either." He's snickering again.

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Adam flashes him a grin, only half remembering why he even wanted to get drunk to begin with. The laughter was cathartic, and his face is far more open and delighted than it likely has been in decades.

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Hiro smiles at him. He likes when Adam is happy.

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Adam smiles back. "We should get out of here, carp. Wander. Have you ever been to London?"

[powered-otaku.livejournal.com]

Hiro shakes his head. "Never."

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"Then you should not just see the inside of a pub," Adam decreed, standing--surprisingly steady, but he's had a lot of practice.