[open] and if it gets too rough, just yell

[blitzcheer]

Who: Tidus & You!
Where: Sports gym, training gym, network, and a few other cars
When: Imagination 16 onwards, mostly 'nights'
What: open log thru the second IC-half of the month! barring any events. idk when to date these, let's go wild.
Warnings: Tidus being down/frustrated. crimes against pianos and blowing up the second floor of the games car's ICP console, oops

1; sports

Tidus, very much, likes to make his second home in the sports gym carriage. Trying out every ball game available, from testing his foot skills with a football, his dribbling with a basketball. Sometimes he just likes to take a racquet and start bouncing a tennis ball on it, seeing how high he can get it.

Bother him, critique his form, or even be there when he's at the ball cupboard, cocking his head to it with a wide grin and offering, "Wanna try a game with me?"

Feel free to catch him with any type of ball. Go on, come on. Ball is lyfe.

2; network(/action)

[ from: the training gym ]

Hey! Sooo uh, I've got a request for any magic users doing nothin'. I heard I can learn some spells if you shoot them at me, so- [ a small pause ] I wanna give it a go! I know water, lightning... my fire's okay I guess, and I know a few time- and healing spells. So anything that isn't them. Or, if you know esuna, that'd be great.

Anyway, I wanna see if it'll work, so come down if you're up for it! Or, we can do it later. Whatever, whenever you're free. I got nothing to do.

[ That's not a weird request to send out, is it. ]

3; late night

But for the good mood Tidus has been painting himself in, it's not been entirely true. He's been staying up the past couple of days, loitering around different cars, with different...events.

a;

First is the upper music car, where the playing of the piano may be heard. 'Playing', technically, but only just. Keys are pressed at random, individually and sporadic; before there's the hard ringing of multiple keys, ugly and deliberate, before quickly turning into a storm of key bashing without remorse for the chaotic sound produced, a manic ten to twenty torture session on the poor instrument before it comes to an end.

Well, for a pause -- and then one last fist on the keys are given, for effect. And Tidus sits on the small seat before it, a fist dragging off.

b;

The second night, the upper games car gets it. There's a light thumping that the downstairs may hear, then the sound of crashing, and even the sound of...squeaking and shrills? Until a far more noticeable sound of something electrical exploding, a the sound of glass smashing and else with it.

A climb up the stairs will reveal - on the side away from the VR gaming - an absolute mess. The oversized jenga pieces have been strewn about the car along with the Connect Four coins, water splattered about to drench the stuffed snake and floor carpet. And the source of the explosion? A pretty easy to find source, if one follows the smell of smoke and sight of it: it's where the upstairs ICP terminal sits, or did sit, in the wall, its screen and everything broken in now, with a large water mark spilling down the wall.

Tidus stands near it, holding 'back' a tiny blue creature in his arms squeaking maniacally, as if positively delighted at the results. ...or if you're not a person of good intentions (because this is a very ghibli creature, please), Tidus just looks like he's weirdly holding his arms around his stomach, if with a gap.

"Uhh-" Regardless, he looks around quick with the company, then throws out a (desperate) defensive: "What?"

W-what are you looking at??

c;

The third night is less disastrous, thankfully. Tidus sits cross-legged on the floor of the sports car, rolling around a ball with his the tips of his fingers, picking it up and lazily spinning it between both hands, or sometimes even just staring at it. Thinking, his face stormy and complicated. Not really paying attention to anything, nor in any apparent rush to do more than look dissatisfied.

He chucks the ball once after a while, a simple throw sending it over a nice distance. But it rolls, comes to a stop -- and Tidus doesn't look interested in following after it.

Comments

[blitzcheer]

His fingers tighten in their curl, the grip of his fists. Knuckles pressed into the skin of his knees, body becoming rigid, withdrawn into itself where he sits without much changing outwardly. Tidus hates this feeling, this hopelessness; when there's nothing else to do but to hope and wait, and he's the least patient guy on any planet.

And when he isn't even called out for it, but assured, pleaded with. It's shame that drops through his body, washing back up through his system, his limbs.

Tidus breathes, his head bowed. The world around him no longer able to deceive him into being anything else but what it is.

"I'm sorry." He pleads a little himself, too; an apology too simple of a thing, while his insides are a tangled mess. "I told you, don't give up, don't be like that, when I'm the guy who doesn't know what he's doing. But what do I know? I'm terrible at this kind of thing. I want something to change, but I don't know how to do it. And everytime I hear about looking, searching, finding some new kind of book or idea..."

It made him want to step back, to put distance between himself and such avenues. Books and thinking were a puzzle he had no place in; didn't know how to involve himself in big texts or talk of tech. What did he know to do there? Why should he be doing anything? Hasn't he searched around blindly in the dark enough?

He's his own contradiction. Letting go of another breath, resigned in sound.

"Don't worry about it. I'm... I'm still working through a few things. I'm not going anywhere."

[adregem]

"...I don't just talk to you because I think you'll give me some sort of answer, Tidus. None of us really know what we're doing, anyway. We just do what we can, hope that we can get some sort of understanding of things as they come our way. That's the best anyone can do, really. To keep going."

So if there were any apologies to be had, they would fall on equally guilty shoulders. Roland knows the tide can sweep you away, no matter how hard you try to resist. But sometimes to survive the waves, you need to ride along until the worst of the swell is over. Or so it goes.

It's not easy for Roland either, to be stuck between a rock and a hard place; a misplaced sense of responsibility he's aware of, but can't let go. But there's no avoiding the feeling anyway - of fighting through the chaos of the void that can't appeal to him the way it does to missionaries who chose this life. Between the two of them sat by a lonely bench, grasping at straws, clinging to vestiges of hope, it's doubly hard when each have already made decisions. When both men have already ended their stories on their own terms. Now here they are, back at the beginning.

He waits for a moment more before deciding to speak up again. His hands idle, twirling the pen between fingers that seek out something to touch or busy themselves with. Honesty granted deserves honesty in return. Roland might come to the conclusion on his own too; about what could be going on in that head of his...

"I'm glad." That you're not going anywhere. "I don't say it as often as I should, but you've really got something that a lot of people here don't have." Roland says, a chuckle under his breath. "You take the trees as if each is its own forest. I think that's great. It pushes me too. Reminds me...of what's at stake."

That maybe there's more to his new tale than retreating to what's familiar. That there really is more to it than just writing things down in fear, hoping that the cover of the void can mask apprehension.

"...That means you're not alone either. We'll do whatever it takes."

Roland repeats to him, chancing a side glance upon a barely visible profile, or a head that's drooped from sight.