voidtreckerexpress | Catnapping

Entry tags:

spark [crau]

Catnapping - OTA

Who: Spark and whomever
Where: All around the train
When: After the mission, before the platform
What: Spark being introspective while trying to pretend he's still just... Spark
Warnings: Angst, possible violence mentions.

Spark often claimed that he slept through missions to explain why he was absent from them, so he was free to have Gar or Privateer Pirate show up. But this time he actually had slept. He'd been sleeping a lot since that world with the fake lives, that one that felt so much like a storm from Nautilus.

But he was....

Lonely. That was it. He was lonely.

He was more settled now than he had been after the fish world, but he was still barely eating and avoiding people. Or had been. He just...

He wished Adrien would show up here. Or The Doctor would know who he was. Rose. Nino. Connie. Nita. Kirika. Dominic. Greg. Donovan. Luna. He'd even take Jacob or Gabriel at this point, though each had their issues. Of course if he was bothering with wishing... Quilt.

He shook himself and walked through the train, looking for someone who needed a cat to snuggle with, or tell their problems to. Or a friendly face from Nautilus, since none from his real home or Paris were here...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Spark kept his eyes on them. "You're never going to train a cat to be a hero. I'm just a cat. A handsome wonderful talking cat, sure but I'm still small and squishy and utterly lacking in thumbs. I've even got two left feet!"

Link blinked. "You're a hero?" This was the conclusion Link jumped to, since he'd only implied Spark was a good person. And the cat's sudden protests pushed him towards suspicion.

He smiled a little. "Ah. That makes sense."

"I just said I wasn't! Do you have a hairball between your ears? Upright type people can be heroes, cats just aren't upstanding like that." HOW DID HE GET TO... JUST... WHAT?! NO! PANIC! STOP! NO!

"I never said you were, until you brought it up," Link explained. "There's a bit of a gap between good person and hero."

"...don't worry. I'm good at secrets."

Shadow. Sheik. There really was quite the list.

"Only because you hero types always think everyone can do what you can just because you do it yourselves! Some of us were never meant to be heroes and that has to be okay!"

"If you weren't you'd think it was funny," Link said quietly.

"Anyway, we have fish to cook?"

"After the furst few dozen times it gets old," he said, flatly. But he nodded. "Yes, fantastic fish fry!"

"Who else figured it out?"

Link adjusted his grasp on the line of fish. "This will be pretty tasty. I haven't had good fish in a long time."

"There's nothing to figure out," he said flatly, sounding annoyed. "I just got fed up of everyone in Nautilus always on my case about how since they can Bend, I can Bend, and everyone here on and on about how if they can go on missions and help people, so can I. I'm a CAT! What am I supposed to do at a landslide or a bad guy or whatever? Shed at it? I mean sure, I can leave a hairball in someone's pillow or keep them up all night caterwauling, but that's not exactly hero level stuff, kid. Yet everyone who can be a hero keeps expecting the rest of us can too. Why isn't being a good therapist and cuddly and adorable enough?"

"It is enough," Link said easily. "If that's who you wish to be."

He wondered why Spark was putting this level of effort into lying. But, he wasn't going to press the issue.

"Doesn't matter what I want, it is who I am."

Link looked at Spark quietly, his eyes sad.

“Sure.”

Yeah... he wasn't liking this conversation, at all. "We going to eat fish, or what?"

Link gave him a tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes. They stayed sad and slightly hurt.

“Sure.” He started walking towards the kitchen.

“I—-understand. I do. I wasn’t worth the Doctor’s time, so, you don’t know me. I’m sorry.”

"The Doctor here doesn't remember any of us," he said flatly, still hurt by that. "He told me I was in his way," More or less. He walked with him, tail swishing in irritation at the memory. "Besides, The Doctor - none of him - got to decide who I knew." He hesitated, then relented, "But people told me you didn't like jokes," feline shrug, which was kind of a dip of his front.

“Zelda wasn’t there either,” Link said.

He scratched his neck with his free hand.

“In battle, I don’t like jokes. Shadow says it’s a coping mechanism. But, it…grates on me. I can’t joke when I’m trying to make sure innocent people don’t die. Their lives deserve more respect than that.”

Link took a deep breath while they walked.

“Ganondorf killed most of the people in Castle Town. When I woke up after seven years, the town was filled with monsters and just the burnt shells of buildings.”

He shook his head.

“Anyway. I can joke about my own death. But, I can’t joke when other people are on the line. I think about the people who died while I was sealed in the Sacred Realm, and…how can I possibly make light of it?”

He stopped dead and stared at him, then jumped up onto his shoulder to make sure he'd listen.

"Donvan told us, well he told his sons and I was there, that you have to joke in battle. It's not just about keeping your own sanity. In Greg's case that's a lost cause anyway," he said offhandedly making a ... catty... remark. "He said it is like why you can't have a death grip on your sword if you're using one. Being all tight and rigid your too stiff to move well and if you get hit on your weapon or shield or whatever instead of rolling with the blow, you take all the impact and it reverberates up your arm or something. He says you get a lot worse hurt fighting stiff. He always teaches people to fight nimble and light, and he says wit as in jokes helps keep your other wits as sharp as your sword."

He thought about the other fighters he knew besides the French kids, because that was dangerous territory right now. Szark says that he jokes when he fights also to keep other people off balance. If someone hates him for being gay and he fills his fight with innuendo in his banter they get too angry to think. Against other adversaries, it makes then not take him seriously enough with his skill or confuses them. Dominic always says that if you have to fight, be as confusing as possible, because someone trying to work out what you just said isn't focused on what you're about to do." Who else? He managed not to wince as he remembered. Bumper. Another friend, gone. But cats weren't supposed to be sad, so he talked like he wasn't. "Bumper said that if you can't crack jokes when you're fighting, you're going to crack in other ways after. And that if you have no humor at all in saving lives, are you just saving the fact of life, or the experience of... no, sorry, that was Luna who said that. She said that when you can't find reasons to laugh, even in the darkest moments, it is too easy to wonder why you're alive at all," he said. And given Luna had tried to kill herself soon after Dominic met her, and stopped Nimmel from doing the same, she should know.

"And Milov said... actually I don't remember what he said, he gave me fish while he was talking, but he's a spellwolf, so I'm sure he was right, whatever it was."

"Now who's trying to change who?"

A soft sigh, that might have started life as a sad laugh.

"I'm never going to be quippy or bantering in battle. I'll fight by anyone's side, I'll die for them, happily, to save others. If joking in battle works for others, I can respect that. I won't even try to get them to stop. It's just...not me. But, I'm getting used to not being what people want."

He reached a hesitant hand towards Spark. "I'm...sorry. I don't usually talk about this stuff with anyone but Shadow. I shouldn't be bothering anyone."

The teen cleared his throat. "So, do they have butter or will I need to Bend some?"

"I have no clue what they have, I can't get into the fridge. I have to paws at the door. No hands," he reminded him, But flopped down over his shoulder and shook his head at the rest.

"Not about what anyone wants you to be, kid," he said with a yawn. "But some people might not want you to die in battle or crack up between battles when you could have been okay. Me? I don't care about changing anyone, just about fish," he lied. "But I'm good at listening when you need to talk, and my fur is soft and soothing to pet."

"Everyone has their own way of coping. With battle and fighting, I mean."

Link shut his eyes and sighed. "Back home and in Nautilus, ranch work helps me. Taking care of all the animals, the cows, horses, cucucos. Repairing fences, building nesting boxes, trimming hooves, milking the cows--"

He opened his eyes and managed a more genuine smile, although his eyes were still sad. "Working with my hands, building things, fixing things, caring for the animals of the ranch, all of that is what helps heal me. There's so much life on a ranch. New life. Babies in the spring, the garden growing---despite all the death and bad things in the world, there's still new life and the world just goes on, you know?"

Some of the sadness lessened as he continued. "Malon's there, and when we work together? It's like...everything is okay. Just for a little bit."

"Sounds like a lot of work to me," he said with a yawn. "But I guess I can see it, maybe."

Spark got one of Link's genuine, albeit dorky, smiles. "It's a lot of work. But, I love every second of it."

"Every second of bing hot, sweaty, and tired?" he asked, knowing that sounding skeptical often made people argue how wonderful the thing they loved was, which made them happier. Which usually led to fish. Though he wasn't as concerned about the fish at the moment as he usually was, old habits were still old habits. Besides, get Dominic on a tangent this way and usually he was waxing poetic about math or whatever for hours.

"Yeah. It's almost like being a regular person."

When they reached the kitchen, Link set about preparing the fish.

He hopped off onto the counter. "Exactly! Why would anyone want that?Much nicer being a cat."

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CW: suicide and fighting mentions.

Re: CW: suicide and fighting mentions.

Re: CW: suicide and fighting mentions.

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