meadowlarklogs | 𝚐𝚘𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚙𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗

You tell me.

（ his tone isn't quite accusatory, but he knows how aidan is. what he gets up to. it wouldn't surprise him if the first thing he did here was shake somebody down for the nearest approximation for all the street drugs they can get back home.

he'd be lying if he said he wasn't tempted, too. but he's busying himself in other ways, shoving himself into everything he can get his fucking hands on. like the dreams, for instance. he's dressed in ratty leisureware here — sweatpants and a tanktop that's probably seen better days. he tips his head back and soaks in the sun for a moment before he takes a deep breath and turns to aidan. ）

We can use dreams to communicate here. I'm trying to get the hang of it.

( he's pretty sure he's not right now, okay. or not on purpose. though the weird sudden scene changes say differently. usually you don't black out for long periods of times like that unless there's. something fucky going on. or hallucinate. whatever.

aidan read up on the dreamshit but didn't expect it to hit that close to home either. he was anticipating--getting thrown into new tokyo round two, new amsterdam. "the aerie". but jai opens his mouth, jai looks comfortable enough and it's enough he stops and actually takes a look around the place. )

Give a guy a warning before you pull him through the ringer, will you? Fuck.

( but he does take those few steps over to jai. drops down onto the grass a bit away from the rock he's settled on. )

What was that? Memories, nightmares?

（ a muscle jumps in his jaw, and a cloud moves to blot out the sun. everything is cooler without it — not unpleasantly so, but as a preamble to autumn. ）

I wasn't fucking trying to pull you in, asshole. It just happened.

（ he's got a lot of mental discipline — but it's not perfect, and he's dealing with forces beyond his experience here. ）

Does it matter?

( a question in response to a question--aidan would point out that he's pulling the same shit with aidan that irritates him when aidan pulls it but also. why bother. neither of them are going to stop any time soon. )

What were you doing with family services?

( the second one is less worrisome. galeya has enough tech to bring someone back from the brink of death, and aidan is willing to frakenstein jai back up from death if it comes down to it. he's not dying on them. )

（ time feels different in dreams, and so does silence. it seems like at eternity between the time the question is asked and the time he decides what he wants to say. day cycles to night within the dreamscape, the world is lit by the moons overhead.

vel is his best kept secret. of the people in his life now, only gal knows about her. there are a variety of reasons he doesn't want to tell aidan — because telling him she exists opens the door to why he can't see her, and that's still a raw, open wound in him. it isn't just the fact that his relationship with dass got so fucking twisted near the end, it's the fucking failure—

he knows how to lie just enough that aidan will believe him. knows how to get him to back off, too. if he snaps, he knows aidan will file it away and drop the subject. but telling him about the kestrel had been like the relief of putting a dislocation back into place, something settled and right.

his hair's the normal length here, he drags a hand through it. takes a breath, lets it out. makes the choice. ）

I've got a daughter. Little older than Rii, I guess.

( he doesn't know what he was expecting--but it wasn't that. but it snaps a few things into place: how good jai is with rii, how his entire goddamn body language shifts when he's with kids. the look in his eye, when he watches after her. he open his mouth and ask about it further but it's--honestly none of his goddamn business, and aidan knows jai will spill when he feels comfortable doing so.

no questions about her, because he doesn't know what jai knows either. he knows he has a daughter, but given--where jai had been, the yelling, the sorrow, aidan is betting it's a sensitive subject. )

Sorry 'bout those assholes. Government workers are the fucking worst.

( good enough. )

（ aidan doesn't push, and something in him relaxes. the world seems to breathe around them. slowly, the birdsong creeps back in, the wind rustles the trees. it's clear he's found some semblance of peace here, far beyond the city walls of ksagae. ）

Yeah. Never a good experience. Fuck.

（ he wants to leave it at that, but. after a moment, he shakes his head. ）

I've seen her twice. Once, right after — （ he'd been high as fuck, barely remembers more than the wonder he had for how small she was. ） and the other about a year ago.

（ he was a stranger to her. it almost seemed crueler to introduce himself as her father, so he didn't. plus, under the watchful eye of that fucking social worker who acts like it's her life's goal to condescend to him every time he opens his mouth, he'd had to be so fucking careful. she already didn't like him, would have looked for any excuse to deny him further access. ）

Those bitches don't know what the hell they're talking about. You know that, right?

( aidan leans back until he tips over and lands on his back in the grass. it smells too fucking--naturey out here. reminds him of the richer part of ksagae. he doesn't particularly like it, but he seems comfortable enough regardless. they're already here, there's no obvious door out so he may as well make himself comfortable. )

I've watched you with Rii. You'd be a great dad, or whatever.

( better than literally any father figure aidan has ever been around during his lifetime. his low standards don't make the statement any less true though. )

（ and because every time aidan says something nice about him, jai has a kneejerk desire to throw it in his face, prove he's nothing like what aidan thinks he is — he has to just. shut that down now. because if aidan actually thinks he's a good person he's terrified he might have something to live up to. it's

easy. being the kestrel. he doesn't have to be on all the time. doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to be decent. he can show up, save someone, leave — and go be a shitty person somewhere else once the hood's off. being a good person every waking minute of your day is fucking work. and he's not ready for that yet. may never be ready. ）

You've seen five seconds of me with a kid that I send home with someone else at the end of the day. That doesn't mean I'm fucking father material.

（ he drags a hand along his scalp, catching at the twists in his hair. ）

We tried to get clean, you know? When we found out. Dass did it. She just made up her mind and fuckin' stopped. I still don't think she's touched the shit, years later. But I couldn't do it. One more time. One more hit. I kept hiding it from her. Showed up at the hospital higher than I think I'd ever fucking been. Social services was already there because of her shitty family and the fact we were underage, and she had me escorted out by security. I don't even blame her, even though I think she's an asshole for a lot of other reasons.

（ she wanted to keep vel. fought for her. it would have reflected badly upon her if she'd made any other choice but that. ）

You were--what? Thirteen, fourteen? A fucking baby. ( it doesn't excuse literally any of it. there is no excuse for being a shitty human being, there's no excuse for falling so deep into crap you can't pull yourself out of it. doesn't matter if someone is five or fifteen or anything in between. in his world, there's no one to take responsibility for your actions but yourself, so.

aidan throws an arm over his eyes to block out the sky. he doesn't wasnt to look at it. doesn't want to see any changes jai's mood throws at their surroundings. this is his place, not aidan's, and it's also none of his business. so. )

I found Rii when I was fifteen. And shit, I never quit. I'd lay off for a bit, enough to get it mostly out of my system. Enough to lower my tolerance towards crap, but never quit. ( he opens his mouth to start up again. grimaces instead. ) This isn't a comparison. I never made a kid. Which is, honestly, surprising as shit because I've done a lot inadvisable crap. But I haven't, I can't relate, and even if I could it wouldn't matter. But you know? I haven't seen you purposefully or accidentally cause a kid serious harm which is better than at least seventy percent of parental figures down in the Hollies.

I've never met anyone even half so fucking willing to make excuses for my shitty behavior as you.

（ he rubs a finger along his browbone and then, impulsively, gets up and goes to sit beside where aidan's flopped in the grass. not touching him, not trying to, just. sitting an arm's length away, sharing the space. ）

Anyway. You never knew me before I started getting court-mandated therapy. The NA stuff, that's all them and Gal too.

Never said shit about who you were before we met.

( because he doesn't know. because he's not making a judgement call for someone he hasn't met. that's not his call. )

And I never said it was an excuse. There's no excuse for being an asshole.

No. There isn't.

（ he'd wanted it so badly to just be all dass' fault. it was easier to blame her for his shit than try to dig internally — but his therapist sure didn't take that shit from him. he didn't like her much, but he has to admit, she's made him look inward more than he ever wanted to. between her and gal, he's almost a fully functioning person on some days. ）

So there you go. That's like... 99.7 percent of all my secrets you've got now.

( right. well. the arm covering his eyes lowers, and aidan moves to sit himself up, both hands pressing to the grass behind him to hold his weight up. focuses his gaze on jai, with just the barest hint of a smile growing at the corners of his lips. )

Still leaves me with .3 percent to dig into.

And leave me with nothing? All I'll have left is boring you to tears.

（ it's one of those things that seems flippant but isn't, and his tone maybe isn't quite as irreverent as he'd intended. the side effects of dreaming. ）

Don't know if you've realized it yet, but there's absolutely no way you could bore me.

( weight shifting onto one hand so he can slide the other closer to jai without actually touching him. just to get the intention across. )

（ aidan pushes into his space and jai holds his ground. it takes a lot out of him not to flinch away, but his breathing stays steady. ）

Maybe that means you're the boring one.

( look he is very pointedly not touching. he just likes jai's space. it lingers there for a moment, before aidan pulls his hand back and bends his knee up, resting his forearm on top of it. )

Maybe I am.

You weren't supposed to agree, jackass.

（ jai. hesitates, a little, but finally reaches out and just shoves him over onto the grass. ）

You aren't.

( he wouldn't mind being the boring one. being boring has it's advantages. but jai reaches over, shoves him over, and aidan hits the grass with a laugh, lips spreading into a grin. )

I've still got most my secrets.

I don't know, you being soOoOo hot for me was probably a good chunk of them.

（ he wiggles his fingers at the exaggerated so, just to prove a point. ）

I'll admit that was one of the bigger ones.

( don't bully him for his feelings, that's rude. his lips pinch tight for a second before he catches it, shifts it into something softer. )

Can you blame me? You're the one who gives yourself a twelve out of ten.

（ he's spectacularly bad at feelings, but he does catch that misstep. maybe it's easier in a subconscious plane. maybe it's because he's newly come to this awareness and isn't quite sure of how to approach it. either way, his expression flickers with something like contrition and he looks down at his hands. ）

That's just bravado, dummy. Can't believe you fell for that.

Yeah, obviously. But your bravado doesn't hit far off the mark. You're hot, you're the only damn person I've ever actually wanted to spend time around, excluding Rii. You're better than you give yourself credit for. You've got flaws just like every other damn person, I'm not denying them. But neither do you.

( nobody can hear him bring up this crap inside of a dream, right. aidan grabs a fist full of grass, rips it out of the ground. )

I actually want to feel shit with you.

（ he stops short of putting his hands over his ears, which he's not sure would work in a fucking dream anyway. now that he's got the knack of things, there's no immediate weather-related changes either to impress upon his company just how deeply uncomfortable he is with the praise. and aidan gives it out so fucking freely. devora's fucking tits. ）

Can you — just stop. Please.

cw: drug use

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cw for addiction issues/shitty parent things/toxic relationships w/e

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