Open to Ryuuji, Sarah, Oz

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

It'd taken Terry days to get the news that Seto and Mokuba were popcorn. When he found out he'd been furious for not having some sort of routine to check about those things. But he'd been avoiding the popcorn room ever since Ryuuji had hinted that Paul hadn't simply left but was in there, somewhere, an empty golden shell covered in salt. And even if Stephen might occasionally mutter something under his breath, a good TA didn't pay it too much attention, just in case the Professor didn't realize he was talking. And then on top of it all, he'd been ill the last couple of days and had only just gotten up and recovered his routine.

Now, however, he was doing his best to make up for not being alarmed sooner when Ryuuji missed their daily brunches or coming to see him to cheer him up. The various House Elves he'd questioned and re-questioned said that Ryuuji was holding vigil outside the popcorn room. His impulse was to have the House Elves shift things in the suite into a new configeration so that Ryuuji wasn't overwhelmed once someone finally brought him back in. But everyone dealt differently with grief. And if that was the wrong thing to do, he didn't want to have to lose steps by having to fix it.

So instead Terry made his way to the popcorn room with chocolate and two cushions.

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[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Ryuuji was seated outside the popcorn room in the same position that his body had collapsed into when he'd originally read the plaque and seen the news about Seto and Mokuba. Knees tucked against his head, head bowed forwards and forehead resting on his knees. Arms wrapped around his legs as if for warmth, the nape of his neck exposed and his ponytail clearly styled by hands that weren't his, the gamer was the very picture of misery.

Seto. Mokuba. Both gone.

Popcorn.

The locket was still in one hand, the letter in the other. The only time he ever let go of them was when he was shoved into a shower by Sarah or Oz; some part of his mind knew that meant water would be coming down on him and that, at least, was enough to make him let go of the letter to whoever was nearby so that they could protect it from getting wet. Never did it occur to him that they might read it, mind shut down and not functioning at its usual levels of paranoia.

Staying this still was probably bad for his back. Ryuuji couldn't care less.

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

Terry eased down beside Ryuuji after throwing a pillow on the ground. Once he was on his, he started squeezing the other one between Ryuuji's back and the wall. The chocolates were just laying in his lap.

"Hey." Because there wasn't much else to say. Seeing Ryuuji like this brought home exactly what was wrong. Someone had left. Two someones.

And then, because he could, Terry leaned over to nuzzle Ryuuji to remind him that he hadn't gone anywhere or become something to be contained in a rool of glass cells.

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Passively, Ryuuji let himself be moved forwards so that the pillow could slide between his back and the wall. He didn't see any point in resisting, after all. What was the point? Why should it matter?

Dressed in an oversized hoodie and jeans, chosen not by him but by one of the people (he hadn't been really paying attention to whom they were) who'd physically dragged him off to have a shower and then to get dressed in clean clothes, Ryuuji looked smaller than usual, more vulnerable and lost in the thick, warm folds of fabric.

Statement. Voice. Requiring acknowledgement and response.

"Hey."

Dead response, bare of any emotion, but a response. And Ryuuji didn't protest to being nuzzled either, staying absolutely still and allowing Terry to do that without any attempt to resist.

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

He combed his fingers through Ryuuji's hair, noting the clothes. Nothing Ryuuji had one was something he'd voluntarily wear in that order. It wasn't flashy enough or trendy enough. It was purely functional and the fucntion was comfort.

Terry pulled back enough to unwrap a piece of chocolate and hold it up to his boyfriend's lips. "M'here."

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Allowing the touches to his hair, Ryuuji completely failed to complain (even in jest) about his hairstyle being messed up. Why should he? He hadn't even cared enough about it himself to be the one to set it into the ponytail, instead leaving that task for one of the people that he was vaguely aware of being around him.

Ryuuji didn't want to eat anymore than he wanted to move. But speech required acknowledgement. So.

"I know."

Because statement of the obvious was met with statement of the equally obvious. Though with Ryuuji's behavior, it was believable that he could have greeted Terry without really knowing the other male was there. It was debatable if he did know that, even now.

He didn't take the chocolate from Terry's hand, though, not shifting out of the closed-eyes, head on knees pose that his body seemed to have adopted as its natural position.

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

He ate the chocolate instead. "So where exactly do we start? There has to be some key to making an anti-popcorn potion - you'd know more about it than I would. You've been here longer. Do we analyze people who have been popcorned and come back? Would someone give us permission to experiment on a random kernal?"

It wasn't exactly idle take. But it was somewhat pro-active. It was something other than 'Should we build a little lean-to right here and live out our days in this hallway beside the popcorn room'. And it was the furthest thing away from 'Do you really think they'd want you to mope about and not live your life'. So Terry kept his voice low and murmurred and stroked Ryuuji's back, looking for clues for where to go next.

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Questions.

Ryuuji had been replying, over the last few days, to direct statements addressed to him and questions. He reacted more to that than to touches, if point-blank answers to interrogation could be counted as an action and not just reflex.

This wasn't any different, Ryuuji parting with all the information he had that was relevant to the questions being asked in that same eerie monotone, "Kon, Voldemort and Snape have all been popcorned and returned. I interviewed the first two and took notes, which I gave to Mokuba. The kernals cannot be removed from the cases, nor is it possible to distinguish which kernal was which person."

In other words, Ryuuji wasn't starting. He'd already done anti-popcorn research, the results of which he'd passed over to Mokuba to study. The results hadn't been encouraging. He doubted that there was anything he could do.

This wasn't death; Ryuuji was a necromancer, he could have at least brought them back if it'd been something so natural. He could have at least prevented them from dying in the first place; none of his wards had turned out to be effective against whatever caused the popcorn plague.

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

"Want to... if they're safe there, go somewhere else for a while? When you're ready?" Terry paused, he was making guesses in the dark. "Hit some things?"

He wasn't sure what else to say or do. Ryuuji'd lost family. As much as he didn't much like Seto - he'd tolerated him for Ryuuji's sake. And now Ryuuji was hurting...

He rubbed Ryuuji's back some more, at a loss of what to say, then found himself just talking; rambling. At least when people were un-popcorned they didn't come back crazy. Imagine if Seto went all Jason on everyone when he got back. They'd be spared that.

Terry found himself mentioning Talia possessed by Rhas As Ghul. And how often people disappeared but returned in his universe. He was talking half to remind Ryuuji he was there and half to remind him that it wasn't a permanent situation. People who were popcorned didn't always stay that way - things weren't completely lost. This universe had it's own twists.

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

"I'm staying here." Because that was all Ryuuji wanted to do, insofar as he wanted anything at all (wanted his brothers back, wanted Seto back, wanted Mokuba back, wanted to have never lost them at all) and he wasn't going to let anyone move him away other than the absolute minimum. Or unless they were dragging him away for a shower. He understood, dimly, that stinking up the halls of Hogwarts wouldn't actually help anything.

Refusing to shower was probably not an effective bargaining tactic in the eyes of the universe.

He didn't protest to having his back rubbed either, allowing Terry to touch him and ramble without any interruptions or change in positioning. He stayed absolutely motionless and silent. No questions meant no answers were needed, so Ryuuji was allowed to be quiet and didn't have to focus on anything other than his own grief.

People came back from being popcorned, true, but then they lost their memories. Or sometimes they gained extra memories. There was no guarantee that Seto and Mokuba would remember being brothers with Ryuuji when they returned. There was no guarantee that it would even be the Seto and Mokuba from his world.

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

"If you stay here all the time, who's going to watch over me if I'm close to being popcorned?"

The question slid out sometime in the middle of the third or fourth pause when Terry couldn't think of anything else to talk about. Ryuuji was grieving. But there were people who cared about him who he was absolutely ignoring.

"Or Oz or Sarah or..." What other friends did Ryuuji have that he was close to. "Mai or people you could meet and get to know and like."

Terry kept stroking Ryuuji's back. "But if you want to stay here, forever, I guess there's not much I can do about that."

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Tense.

Shudder.

Because Terry had asked it like Ryuuji could actually make a difference to whether or not he'd be popcorned. But the implication of that was that Ryuuji had failed to watch Mokuba and Seto closely enough, and that was why they had been popcorned.

Which made it his fault. Not a good enough brother. Not good enough to protect them.

"Watching over people doesn't stop them from being popcorned. Mokuba and Seto were warded,--" And he stressed that word slightly, a break of emotion amidst dead words, "--And they still were popcorned."

Flat statement of fact, "I'm useless."

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

Terry curled around Ryuuji, nodding suddenly. "Oh. That's it." As if he'd just been given a clue. And he had been. Ryuuji wasn't just mourning, he was beating himself up.

"Do you like it here? Did they like it here? Because you and I know the only thing that could have stopped something happening is if we left. If you want to beat yourself up on not making them go somewhere else, some other univrese - fine. I'll help. But if you're going to say there's some magic you could have used to make this not happen - let's just look at the popcorn list again; gods, magicians, sorcerers, demons. In this place, this happens. And you're not the only one who hates that it does, Ryuu."

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

Again, no protests to being curled around, Ryuuji showing absolutely no sense of space or comfort levels where his own body was concerned. If his mind had been processing at its usual speeds, he might have taken Terry's nod and initial statement as agreement that yes, Ryuuji was useless but as it was, Terry had finished speaking before Ryuuji even started understanding him.

More direct questions to answer. "I liked it here. They did too. That's why they extended their stay instead of leaving in June."

Maybe he should have told them to leave as they'd originally planned. Maybe then they'd have been safe but back then, he hadn't known they were his brothers, hadn't realized they were his responsibility beyond that of friends whom he'd lose if he sent them away.

And they'd stayed but he'd lost them them anyway.

"I should have made them stay home."

[tomorrow-knight.livejournal.com]

"Maybe. Maybe they'd be safe if they'd stayed. Or something else would have gotten to them. Nothing's perfect unless you're a god, Ryuu. And you don't believe in them.

He rocked slightly, hoping to rock Ryuuji with him - that the motion would help. Even though he knew Ryuuji didn't need calming, he needed jumpstarting.

Ryuuji was numb and locked into self-blame and a scary blank sadness. Hopefully he'd move out of it. Though a voice in Terry's heard whispered about dependencies and how broken Ryuuji'd become when he left.

[dice-addict.livejournal.com]

"The worse that could have happened to them on my world is death. Death is fixable. This isn't." Precise, blank statements, Ryuuji letting Terry rock and thus rock him as well. It wasn't as if he'd feel seasick thanks to the motion, after all.

That would require a higher degree of body-mind awareness than Ryuuji was currently capable of.

Because Ryuuji knew, on some level, that he had a body and Terry was holding it. And that he had a mind and he was thinking with it.

But both of those were abstracts, like knowing the sun rises in the east, because all he could feel was a sadness that deadened him.