2287/Show Me

Show Me
Date of Scene:	02 February 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	The day after 2281/Murder,_She_Wrote, Kazuo fusses over Mamoru and Mamoru leans on Kazuo.
Cast of Characters:	Kazuo Saitou, Mamoru Chiba

---

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Everything's the same. Nothing's the same.

Life goes on, as life does. Kazuo and Tamaki are taking care of Juunichi's kitten, which means that Mamoru has petting and cuteness privileges but does not have to clean up after, administer pills to, or bargain with/menace Anko about the tiny. There are constantly spare hands to help with reaching and adjusting and providing cushions - and with sleeves, which may be Mamoru's short-term nemesis (small n). There's a lot of touch, when Mamoru can handle it: regular quiet reassurances that he has people there, that there's steadiness, that he can take a little time to recover. A little time to breathe.

Only a little. But that's more than it could be.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Sleeves indeed. And getting the sling on and off, and Kazuo can tell that Mamoru's only partially engaging with everything going on around him, on and off, but otherwise is calm but exhausted, still. He doesn't have enough calcium to heal three breaks all at once, so there may be some negotiating pills with Mamoru too.

Mamoru also thinks Kazuo is fussing too much.

And at least, it turns out, Anko really likes kittens. Anko is clearly considering offering to part-time mommy that baby.

Right this minute? It's after school, Usagi is going to see Wako and Kyouka, Chibiusa is with Naru on campus, and Mamoru is so, so tired. He catches at Kazuo's hand. He's not wording very well, but he's mildly concerned about Kazuo after Koan. Mamoru thiinks he's okay, but isn't certain.

Dark blue eyes look up at grey, and Mamoru laces his fingers through Kazuo's for a second, pulling his hand away if it looks like Kazuo's going to sit.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Mamoru always thinks Kazuo is fussing too much. This is not new. It does, however, get Mamoru the Very Good Cocoa, because heating milk and making it chocolate is a much, much easier way to get Mamoru to have more calcium than trying to get him to take pills.

Right this minute, though, Kazuo is --

He feels a little tired, yes. But it's eyes-tired, naps-would-be-good tired, not the kind of raw emotional exhaustion Mamoru is dealing with. No low-grade horror at what happened, to Juunichi or to Koan or to Usagi; he's not dwelling. And he crosses his other hand to settle lightly over Mamoru's.

"I'm all right," he says quietly. "We learned something important, and I've been trying to figure out what we can do with that, and if we know more than we think we do. That's all. Do you want to rest a while?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Okay. But does Usagi--" Hand on hand. The look on Kazuo's face, when Mamoru told him to kill Koan, and how that feral grin was thrilling, but how afterwards there's been a background worry. Does Usagi need to purify Kazuo? He doesn't think so, but...

"I don't want to rest. I want to stop dwelling," Mamoru says with a little laugh. "What did we learn?"

His touch has a little taste of anxiety in it, but it's mostly soothed by Kazuo's own calm. He's exhausted but he already slept. He can't rest very well with spinning thoughts.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"No," Kazuo says gently to the half-asked question. "If you're still worried, I'll talk to Agemaki-san later. But I don't think there's a problem."

Kazuo shifts stance, then. "Her earrings," he says. "The black crystals. Let me ask first - you've fought these people before. Did you notice them wearing earrings like hers? Or anything else that looked similar?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"No, you don't have to," Mamoru says, leaning gingerly and then more relaxed once he's got his other shoulder settled. "I'm glad to know I can be thrilled without any moral hesitations."

The question, though, he curls a little further into Kazuo's side. "Crimson Rubeus had them. I didn't see if the other sisters did, they were too far away." Along with the statement comes the mental image of a flash off of pure darkness, in the place the dangling part of an earring should be, of Rubeus before he set down the dome.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"They're channelling power either from or through the earrings," Kazuo says. "Without them, Koan grew much weaker. And the crystal is vulnerable to purification; they offgassed, then broke. I don't know what the crystal they're using is, or where they're getting it from, or whether it'd be vulnerable in larger chunks. But they have a weak point."

He pauses.

"And we have the remnants of her earrings. There's not much left, but I collected what there was and put it away. We can have people take a look at it. With a purifier standing by, in case it's contagious, too. Maybe we can learn something more."

He did not try to look at it himself. That might, possibly, relieve Mamoru more about the state of Kazuo's spirit. Given that someone he knows might have pried into it that same night.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru is idly picking up the images of what Kazuo's saying while he's saying them, the dust of the earring, the offgassing and breaking, the earring whole.

He wasn't truly worried there was a problem after Kazuo reassured him, but this additional reassurance is very nice.

There's a moment's distracted ruefulness that it's difficult to get comfort-squished by half a Kazuo when there's a broken shoulder, and then there's a distracted irritation that he can't just fully heal it. It'll probably be completely fine in a week, but that's a week of aggravation and then weeks afterwards of wearing an unnecessary sling. But if he's going to keep visiting Junichi--

He wrenches his mind around again and says, "Maybe we can ask Small Lady. In what I saw from her head--"

Tokyo's space, but ancient, and blasted and broken and smoking, bodies laying around on the ground, and small bouquets of black crystals poking up from the ground here and there.

A very big one. So big it's nearly as tall as the palace, and it hums with evil.

"But they shouldn't be able to recharge or channel from it if, uh. If they're in a different timeline.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo Saitou says, "Not from that one," Kazuo agrees. "That's one of the reasons we need to find out more about it --"

The back of his head hosts an image of a child's science toy, a kit with crystals slowly growing in a solution, forming prisms and spikes.

"-- to see how they're getting it, what they can do with it. Or what it's doing with them." He takes a breath. Lets it out. "If we can find a way to talk with Small Lady without it traumatizing her again ... she may know more than she thinks she knows, too."
"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Well-- I'll ask her if she wants me to try and kick her nightmares in the shins for her. I'm willing to bet," says Mamoru, pulling at Kazuo's arm but not sure what to do with it. He doesn't finish the sentence, he's abruptly thinking of Emi. They aren't external nightmares, but maybe that doesn't make a difference.

And then he's suddenly remembering Metalia in Zoisite's mind, roaring and snapping with power and hate, and he thinks about how bad it would have been to actually face Metalia in the mall parking lot.

Thinking of Zoisite's purification brings up Jadeite's, and Mamoru sighs, because he's having trouble getting a read on Tamaki, and he still wonders if Jadeite's continuing level of obsession with him is because of maybe something he missed or accidentally rewired when he was piecing neurons together.

"Um," says Mamoru, and Kazuo can see him scrabbling back through his thoughts to where they were. "Anyway there are a few ways I could go about asking her."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo reacts to the pull, mostly by sliding his other arm around Mamoru's waist, and leaning his head toward Mamoru's. Well away from the shoulder, both directions, but more touch.

"No, I'm chasing that topic change," he says. "I don't think it's because of anything you did. I ... wish I knew more about his parents in this life. The English-accent thing is something they taught him - here, your actual accent isn't acceptable for business, learn this one to be polite. And I'm wondering how much else they did. Here, your actual you isn't acceptable, put this mask on for us, it'll make things better when you grow up. Parents do that. Often without meaning to. And Tamaki... wound up defining himself only through other people. I've talked with him about it. Put it in terms of what it does to our ability to resist attacks like what Rubeus did; we can't hold on to our normal thinking if we don't know what it is. So he's working actively on that now. He'll need a hand while he learns to stand up without the scaffolding; I'll do as much as I possibly can on that. Easier for me to do it than you, I think."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"...shit," Mamoru says, and turns his head to mash his face a little into the top of Kazuo's shoulder. "I feel like I made a mistake, agreeing to a relationship before making sure that he wouldn't-- like-- define himself as my boyfriend on top of defining himself as my knight but not really having anything else to fall back on?"

He sighs again and there's true worry there but now Mamoru's also grumpy, briefly. It's a very general sort of flavor of grump, honestly, it's 'why can't the world do as it's told' sort of grump.

"Thank you," he says after a moment, rolling around in the warmth of Kazuo taking care of Tamaki. "I really did make everything more complicated."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"He's starting to have other things to fall back on," Kazuo says. "He relates to me, to Usagi, to Chibiusa - all of those grow out of his relationship to you, yes, but it means there are more people pushing gently from different directions, and all of them are links to more people still. He'd still be getting better, slowly, as long as we kept hauling him out of his gloom den every time he starts to try to bury himself in it. Figuring out what the problem is should make it easier to work on it."

His mouth curves up at one side, suddenly, sharply, and the spark of silent laughter is a startlement even to himself. "Since there is a him in there. As witnessed when he started yelling after I punched him. I suppose that we can't count on smacking him by surprise every time he falls out of the American accent..."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Why would they give him diction lessons in Britain instead of Hollywood?" mopes Mamoru. It's moping, there's really no other word for it. "Don't Americans do that? Anyway I love his actual accent, it's cute. We have to get him to talk like that when he's Jadeite all the time, maybe he won't take himself so seriously."

In the background, the prince is running through the first part of what Kazuo said, building the relationship web in his head. A mock-up, but it looks a lot like the real thing, the delicate gold strands that show actual connections.

Then there's laughter, even if it doesn't get as far as being out loud, and Mamoru says, "We'll try to avoid percussive maintenance."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Why pay for something you can get on the television?" Kazuo returns for the moping. And then Mamoru mentions getting Tamaki to talk like Jadeite all the time, and Kazuo...

... he literally cannot help but imagine an ice corn maze.

The image is stomped down firmly. Not useful when so many of your opponents can fly!

... and silent laughter for something else is welcomed. "I suppose he's not actually a television," Kazuo agrees. "I'll see if I can find some more useful things to keep him busy. Besides sharing the kittenwatch. More blocks for him to build with."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
An ice corn maze.

Mamoru picks up Kazuo's hand and gently but firmly bites it. (His mind can't lie: he also just wanted to bite Kazuo.)

"Thank you. Also, now I want to rest."

He leans on Kazuo harder. "And so do you."