Catnapping - OTA

[death_from_above]

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...

Comments

Re: take two, lol

[death_from_above]

"Everyone needs help," he said with absolute certainty.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Not for the reasons you're thinking."

[death_from_above]

"How do you know what I'm thinking? I don't know what I'm thinking half the time."

[sevenyearsasleep]

“You kind of implied it was because I honor the memory of people I’ve lost without humor.”

[death_from_above]

"You need to loosen up un general. But that's not the only reason."

[sevenyearsasleep]

“I told you why I can’t. And why I can’t take you…”

[death_from_above]

"What if I said it would help you do better on missions?"

Yes, he was bargaining.

[sevenyearsasleep]

“I can’t, Spark. I’m sorry.”

[death_from_above]

"It won't cause a flaw! Miranda wouldn't let it. It's fine!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

"She's not an Ascended, Spark. I'm sorry, but, I won't risk an entire world on a whim."

Link felt genuinely awful. It wasn't that he wanted to deny Spark's request.

"Maybe...maybe they'll show up on the train."

[death_from_above]

He slumped a bit. "My people never show up here."

[sevenyearsasleep]

“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen Navi in almost six years now. It’s…hard.”

Harder still since Navi was missing in Hyrule as well.

CW: gore and gory icon

[death_from_above]

Spark sighed and shook his head. "See this is why you need Donovan." Ugh, he really didn't want to tell this story. For... lots of reasons. But so long as he didn't describe Quilt too carefully, he should be okay... right?

"Look, you want to know why being lighter about all these things is important? Why it is important to make jokes even in battle and all that? Well, there was this one time back home when my human, Dominic, was missing. Off saving all of reality or whatever. He does that sort of stuff so often I stopped paying attention for a while. But we had to all go do a thing to help back on our world. Not sure what help I was gonna be, being a cat and all, but Donovan said I'd be of help, fur sure. So there we are, heading off to battle, dire end of the world and whatever stuff."

"And right in the road on our way was Dejah! Dejah is one of my bestest friends ever. He's an Oracle that Dominic consults sometimes when he wants Dejah's view on things he's already seen. With Dejah helping things would go our way for sure! I jumped down to greet Dejah as usual. By licking him. That's why Dejah is my favorite. He tastes like jelly!" Spark grinned, bouncing a bit. Thinking about Dejah always put him in a good mood. He missed the little slime mold.

"So I am down there licking him, but instead of laughing he gets mad at me, tells me to be serious. Now see, you'd probably agree. But between that and the fact that he did NOT taste like jelly, I knew he wasn't actually Dejah. When I called him out, he transformed into this big demon looking thing with horns and wings. So Milov transformed into his furry form. As Donovan said, it was a real Monster Mash." He even got that joke now. At the time he had just appreciated the alliteration.

"We couldn't help, and Milov knew it, so he sent us on to try to find Helxia and stop her. So we left him to fight the first of the Chosen and we pressed on. "

"That was when we ran into... someone from our past. Who had created an undead abomination," sorry Quilt. "A being of pure evil created to destroy us all. Also he raised a few dozen zombies, to get a rise out of us. Donovan and Jayden fought them while me and Luna went on. Turns out, while they were fighting? Donovan was totally being Donovan. Took the creature a wile to catch on to his jokes but once he did? He totally stopped fighting and defected, and came home with us as a friend. We could have kept fighting" or Donovan could "And destroyed him. Instead we got a new friend who was all kinds of powerful and cool and had the best worst sense of humor ever. He even made Miranda smile with his advanced physics jokes. It was like he was made for us." Well, he sort of was.

"Meanwhile, me and Luna went on because we still hadn't found Helxia yet. You know how we beat her? Because Luna had learned how to be a little silly when she needed to be and because I could find humor in everything and didn't mind at all watching myself being impaled. See I always have this battle cry. Always. DEATH FROM ABOVE! It is awesome and instills fear into the heart of enemies. But Dirk might have pointed out that it makes me predictable. So I yelled DEATH FROM ABOVE and dropped down on Helxia. She heard me coming and lifted her claws. She caught me, spiky nails cutting through me all over. I could have blown it all if I got upset or grossed out or whatever, but while she was gloating, Luna was able to use the spell hidden in the illusion of me to trap her! It didn't finish her off, Luna had to fake kiss her and bite off her lips to do that, but in the end, we won because Dejah would have had a sense of humor even in the face of certain doom, Donovan was able to use his jokes to turn an enemy into a friend, and because Helxia took everything too seriously and Luna was able to take the absurd road."

"Well, that and Klo Tarak showing up and lying through his breather to Luna to get her so mad she sent a powerful blast into one of the other battles, finishing it. But if she stayed mad rather than listening to him, then Dominic would have been all the way for real dead."

"I could tell you about how Greg stopped Snowsong with humour too, if you want but that story isn't as awesome because I'm not really in it. But given her element is ice and she tried to freeze Greg and another friend to death in ice, it is still a cool story."

And oddly. he felt better talking about home like this. "Is the fish ready yet?"

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link listened thoughtfully, keeping an eye on the fish so it didn't burn.

"That's...who your friend is, Spark. That's not who I am. I know...I know that I'm not a lot of fun."

He hesitated and then continued. "The first time I was this age, was still ten up here," Link tapped his forehead. "The goddesses and the Master Sword only needed me to be physically an adult. But, for me, it was just instant. The world was instantly destroyed. The kingdom was in ruins. And the first thing I was told was that I was the world's last, final, and only hope."

Link adjusted the heat, tilting the pan. "My friends who were awakened as Sages were killed by the monsters Ganondorf sent. Ruto, Darunia, Nabooru, Impa....Saria." His voice cracked slightly on Saria's name. "None of them got to live in the world we fought so hard for. Darunia's son lost his father because of everything....because I didn't notice a hulking warrior followed me into the Sacred Realm."

He took a deep breath to steady himself, turning off the heat and turning to find a plate to put the fish on for Spark.

"So...no. I'm not much fun in battle. I mourn those I've lost. I'm more likely to reach out a hand of friendship in battle than I am to crack a joke. It's just who I am."

Link slid the fish from the pan onto a plate. "You'll want to let that cool a bit."

[death_from_above]

"But cracking a joke is reaching out the hand of friendship," he pointed out. "That is exactly what it is. And do you really think your friends want you sad and miserable when you think of them? Or do you think they'd want to know you were happy now? That you were remembering them and smiling? That you were telling people not how sad it is that they were gone, but how great it was that they lived? We all have people we lost. Even a cat like me. But I know Bumper would rather I tell you about all the times he and his best friend tried to steal from someone who could literally see and change the future than cry that he's gone. He'd want us to talk about all the things he did to make amends in his life, all the friends he made, the people he saved than how he died. Sure, the last hour of his life was bad. But there was so much more good in it."

It would have been easier to come up with good examples of Quilt, really. But given Privateer Pirate, he had to be careful.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I think that depends on the situation. To me, it just makes someone look arrogant, like their mission, their duty doesn't matter. Like they're too good to take things seriously. As if the lives they're protecting aren't important."

He shook his head. "Of course they'd want me to be happy, but at least three of them would actively kick my---if tried joking about them and their sacrifices. Another would be hurt, and that's not who I am."

"I can love them, enjoy the good memories, and mourn them all without mocking them."

[death_from_above]

"Yeah, non of my humans think they're that good, and they all value the lives they're protecting. Joking around keeps them loose, and helps them. And turns foes to friends. They're not arrogant for doing that."

"But you're not happy."

[sevenyearsasleep]

“Me being happy isn’t important.”

[death_from_above]

"It is to the people who care about you. Or do they not matter?"

[sevenyearsasleep]

“If they love me, they understand. It’s not like I’m never happy, or anything.”

[death_from_above]

"Do you want the people you love to be happy?"

[sevenyearsasleep]

“Shadow told me I need to be more open about my feelings. I used to hide them more…”

Link shook his head. “I know what you're getting at. No one is happy all the time. That would take a lot away from real joy. My friends want me happy not faking it.”

[death_from_above]

"I never said fake it. Seeesh. But there is no problem with being happy often. As Donovan used to say all the time, happiness is more infectious than anything save a smile."

[sevenyearsasleep]

“He sounds a lot like a mask salesman that I know.”

Which, unfortunately for Spark, raised a bit of wariness on Link’s end.

“I do like to make people happy. I try to help people whenever I can…and that makes me happy too.”

[death_from_above]

"It sure doesn't seem to make you happy from what I've seen."