| Gaycation II: Son of Gaycation - Refractory Period | |||
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| Summary: Leo Stenbuck and Latooni Subota's Neo-Facebook relationship statuses remain unchanged. | |||
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OBSERVATION DECK 2
JUPITORIS-8
The Jupitoris-8 may be an extremely industrial ship, but it is not entirely without its creature comforts. One such comfort is a handful of observation decks throughout the two-kilometer long ship, a glorified break room with all of the usual accoutrements of such. What makes it an observation room is, of course, the enormous window in one wall, through which the planet Jupiter looms, as the IPHC slowly orbits around it.
Currently, Leo Stenbuck - clad in his usual A-LAWS casual of boots, uniformp pants, and tank top - is taking a moment to 'rest his eyes' on the observation deck; this translates directly to dozing while slumped in a sitting position on a couch facing the window, his head resting on the back of the couch. His Haro is parked in his lap, and his arms are wrapped around it like it was a stuffed animal.
The first day Latooni was here, she caught up on some long-missed sleep. She doesn't need much, but she does need some, and she has been decidedly low on times to get it.
After that, though, she spent her time looking around. She has never been to Jupiter. It is new and mysterious and kind of interesting. Even when Leo was at 'work', she enjoyed herself and may even have gone to do 'tourist' things on one of the nearby colonies. She's never done that before, either.
Latooni is in jeans and a T-shirt of quite possibly the most boring design ever: the first is black and the second blue. They are one of the few things she is qualified to dress herself in without a fashion disaster taking place. She walks in, looking around -
And smiles, very faintly, when she sees the dozing Leo. Without attempting to wake him up, she lowers herself on the couch next to him, sitting to look out the window herself.
Leo shifts slightly when Latooni settles onto the couch next to him. He seems pretty out of it, and understandably; he doesn't need a lot of sleep, either, but he's just as short on it as Latooni... and, indeed, as most people in the Federation. Of course, even when Leo /does/ find time for sleep, it's usually fitful and full of nightmares.
His Haro, however, has no sympathy for any of this. A few seconds after Latooni has taken her seat, it rotates to face her, and begins flapping its 'ears' excitedly. "WAKE UP, AMURO!" it cries. "WAKE UP, AMURO!"
Leo starts awake, jerking upright and whipping his head back and forth as he scrambles to get his bearings, blinking rapidly.
Whoops. Sorry, Leo.
Latooni looks apologetic when Leo jerks awake next to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't think I would set it off," she admits, looking over at him. "If it had been up to me I would have let you sleep a while longer." Until he woke up. She wasn't in a hurry, and if it took him too long she would've just gotten up to do something else.
She reaches across to pick up the Haro so it does not continue to bludgeon him with its flapping ears. She can hold it out a little bit so it doesn't hit her.
"It's fine," Leo mumbles, just barely coherently, reaching up to rub vigorously at his eyes with the heels of his palms as Latooni plucks the Haro out of his lap. It calms down once it's sure he's waking up, and snaps its ears shut, its eyes flashing on and off as it studies the young woman holding it.
Eventually, it makes up its mind, and declares delightedly, "HARO, HAYATO! HARO, HAYATO!"
"Stupid thing," Leo grunts. Regardless of the harsh words, when he lowers his hands from his eyes, he's smiling, and an instant later he's reaching out an arm to hook it around Latooni's waist and pull her closer to him. "Hey."
Hayato? /Really/?
Latooni just thinks the thing is broken again and ignores the Haro entirely, aside from holding it so it can't bash either of them. "Well, you need your sleep," she says, before being pulled against him.
That's fine, she decides, and slides closer to him so she's not pulled at an uncomfortable angle. "If you wanted it, anyway. How are you? I am sorry, I have not been very good company on this trip..." Or so she thinks. All that sleeping, and being up when Leo was at work.
"No, no, it's my fault," Leo assures Latooni with a frown. "I had hoped the... stuff I had to take care of wouldn't take so much time, but..." He shrugs helplessly, and gives Latooni's waist a light squeeze. "I should be free from now on, though. Um... mostly."
"I hope you've been having a good time, at least?" he asks. It's obvious from his voice that he very much wants this to be the case, for whatever Godforsaken reason. "Even if I've been busy..."
"Yes," Latooni says, perhaps surprisingly. She doesn't /look/ like she's having it, but... "I so rarely get to do... anything like this. If I go somewhere new it is because I have been sent. I don't think I have ever just gone somewhere, for the first time, to just see it."
She lowers the Haro down to her knee when she's pretty sure it's not going to flip out again. "At least you did what you had to do. I don't like leaving work undone, either. And now you have some free time." Again.
"Yeah," Leo agrees, his smile returning. He's not a big fan of politicking, but... well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. "Well, I'm glad you're having a good time." He pauses, and reaches up with his free hand to scratch at his chin. "I guess we should find something to do together, while we've got the time, huh?"
Not that he has any idea what to do, of course, other than borrow one of the Jupitoris-8's shuttles and cruise around the Jupiter Sphere. Besides, personally, he'd be perfectly content to just sit here... but some part of him is forced to admit that it's pretty lame to come halfway across the solar system and then not leave your hotel room.
The Haro, meanwhile, has calmed down completely, and fallen silent once again. This is just how it rolls, and a testament to Leo's extremely amateur status as a roboticist. Possibly even... double amateur.
He's still more experienced than Latooni at being a roboticist. She doesn't touch the stuff for a perfectly good reason.
She's awful at it.
"We could," Latooni agrees. She isn't sure what he has planned either, but she'd be happy to just spend time with him. "It's nice to just be able to sit and talk, though. Um. Not that I am very good at that, either..." She shifts a little uncomfortably. Conversation is hard. It was so much easier when she didn't have to say all these things.
Leo shoots Latooni a Look, and gives her waist another squeeze. "You're fine," he assures her, gently. "You don't have to worry about... saying the wrong thing, or anything, with me. Just relax. You don't even have to say anything, if you don't want to."
He proceeds to take his advice to heart; he reclines into the couch cushions again, pulling Latooni yet closer to him, leaning into her, and closing his eyes.
Oh.
Well.
Latooni's face reddens in a kind of blotchy way that she is at pains to hide; she looks down and away from Leo even when he pulls her closer. At least he's got his eyes closed. He can't see that she doesn't look good red.
"I'm glad," she says, after a few moments of sitting like that. "Because... there's something I wanted to talk to you about. And I hadn't because I didn't want to upset you, or..." After that whole Rei thing, she's not entirely sure how far she should push Leo this way. But Arado was insistent - find out!
Apparently, Leo gets the hint that whatever Latooni wants to talk about might not be entirely pleasant; after a few moments, he sighs heavily and sits up straight again, shifting in his seat to face towards Latooni.
"Okay," he prompts, forcing a reassuring smile despite his rapidly growing worry. The last time someone wanted to talk to him about something not entirely pleasant, after all, he found out Ralla Traln Triald was MIA. "It's fine. What's up?"
It's not bad," Latooni assures Leo, "I just didn't know if you wanted to hear it."
That makes everything so much better.
SOME TIME AGO
Latooni opens her mouth to tell Ryusei something. She never gets it out because of sheer embarassment; she squeaks instead.
He looks around to see which speaker is malfunctioning.
RIGHT NOW
Latooni opens her mouth, and closes it again with a hiss of air through her nose. "Maybe this isn't the best time," she says, quiet and a little breathy. "That is, if you are still tired, or you want to - do something on Jupiter - well - "
Well, now this is just getting distressing. "Lat, what's wrong?" Leo asks, obviously concerned. If it isn't bad, why does she seem so hesitant to talk about it?
That reminds him of what happened to Ralla, too: Soma contacting him while he was on vacation, and not having the nerve to actually tell him what had happened. But Soma admitted something bad happened, and Latooni said it isn't bad, and and and what could it even BE?
Sometimes, Leo can be awfully thick.
As one of Leo's arms is still wrapped around Latooni's waist, he lifts the other across his body, reaching out to grab a hold of one of Latooni's hands. "Come on, tell me," he urges.
"..."
Another memory, this time of her seizing up when someone looked her in the eyes. She doesn't even remember who it was; maybe Giado, one of the first times, when she was afraid of men.
"Okay," she eventually agrees. "I was wondering if, um, if it was too soon, if..." Latooni trails off, running her thumb over the side of one of her fingers in an apparently nervous habit.
Latooni looks straight at Leo, then asks, directly, "Am I, ah, am I..." Okay, maybe not that directly. "...are we dating? Or..."
Oh.
/OH./
Leo rocks his weight a little backwards, almost as if he had been struck, and makes an uncomfortable noise, a kind of groan in the back of his throat. After a few seconds of silence, he loses his nerve, and looks away from Latooni's face, turning to stare out the window in the room.
"Lat... look," he says eventually, speaking very deliberately, his voice pained. "I... I really, really like you. But... after what happened... I just, I, I don't think I'm ready for... like, a real relationship, yet."
"I just... need a couple months, you know?" he continues, without looking away from the window. "And then, if... if you still want to..."
Latooni expected as much. That is why she was hesitant to even bring it up in the first place; she probably wouldn't have if Arado had not asked her, again, on the way down. It never seemed that important to her, to make things like that 'official'.
So why does she still feel bad about it? Maybe because of the response it drew from Leo... no, maybe more than that. She isn't sure. Analyzing her own feelings is almost impossible.
She looks down again, briefly, then up. "Okay," she says, simply. "Whenever - whatever you would like to do. I don't - I didn't mean to make you upset. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked, after all..."
The fact that Latooni does not break down crying or something does a great job of making the situation less uncomfortable for Leo, and when she remains calm he visibly relaxes. He doesn't look back at her, though... and the fact that he just explicitly told her they were not an item has not done anything to get his hand off of hers, or his arm from around her waist.
"It's fine," he assures Latooni, as gently as he can. "I'm not upset. I mean... I'm glad you asked. And I'm glad that... you know, you're willing to wait. I'll... tell you, when I'm ready. Okay?"
Latooni Subota does not cry in public. Leo has seen her do it once. Ever. It was after she was rescued from the DC and deprogrammed.
She does get cold and distant, and although she is trying not to do it, she is retreating a little right now. Mentally, if not physically. "Okay," she agrees, and her voice at least is unchanged. She still seems to be as friendly as she was a moment ago, and she hasn't pulled away...
That's a good thing, right?
"When you go back," she says, eventually. "Are you going back to work right away?"
There is no judgement here, Latooni Subota, especially not from Leo, who has not been able to cry since Rei Ayanami died, despite frequent attempts.
"Yeah," Leo confirms, a little sadly. "I'm stretching it just by coming here, after being gone for so long already... but I'm glad I did," he adds, quickly. "And we can still, you know, do stuff together, even if..."
Hm. The clarification regarding their relationship status has made things... a little awkward, Leo has to admit to himself. He just hopes that it's temporary, and not something that's going to hang over all of their interactions from now until... well, whenever he's ready.
All conversations with Latooni are a little awkward.
"That's good," Latooni says, sounding a little bit more at ease. She's trying to not be quite as awkward around Leo, with mixed success. "I hope you, um, do well once you're back. And I'd like if it we could. I was actually talking to some of the developers of Vic Viper lately, because... well, Wildraubtier isn't mine and it was rerequisitioned. So, um, there's that. We should go flying somewhere."
Her mind adds a picnic or something at the end, because she has been thoroughly corrupted by Shine.
"I'd like that," Leo says sincerely, squeezing Latooni's hand. "I'll need to get the Viper back from them, first... they're hanging on to it, right now, 'cuz they're almost ready for mass production. I mean, it's not a big deal, 'cuz I've got my Gundam, now, but, you know, I don't know if the 1 could keep up, so I'll..."
Leo trails off when he realizes what he's doing, and after an awkward pause gives a nervous laugh. "Sorry. I guess I'm babbling. Um... I'd like that," he repeats. He leaves it at that, this time.
"I didn't know it was that close. Are the - no, I'll wait until they're done," Latooni corrects herself. Leo might not know the answer to 'how fast do the mass produced ones go', anyway - nobody will until they make some and test them. "And... I don't mind if you, um, ramble. I don't talk very much. So it fills in the gaps."
She thinks about that for a moment, then: "You can always ride with me. I think there's enough room."
Leo cracks a small smile at Latooni's comment about his rambling. That's the same thing Rei used t--
-- Leo's grip on Latooni's waist suddenly tightens to uncomfortable levels, and his jaw seizes up as his teeth clench together. No, no, don't think about her, think about something else, something else something else LA LA LA LA LA NOT THINKING ABOUT HER
After only a moment, Leo's grip loosens again, and apparently even looking at Jupiter is too much of a burden, because he turns to look at a wall over yonder. "Sorry," he mutters miserably. "Yeah... ride with you. That'd be fine."
"Leo," Latooni says, suddenly, when he squeezes. It's not quite pained. She's tougher than she looks. But that doesn't mean she's tough, and it came all of a sudden... "Leo, are you - "
He's not having a fit. She is strangely relieved, especially when his grip loosens and she doesn't feel so squeezed and out of breath. "Leo, I'm ... are you all right? I don't mean to hurt you, or - I mean mentally." Obviously he's /physically/ okay.
"I'm fine," Leo insists, a little too quickly. He doesn't sound very convincing. He pauses, swallows roughly, and adds, "It's not your fault. I just... like I said, I'm not..."
He aborts the sentence into an explosive sigh, and drops his head to rest his chin on his chest. "I'm sorry... do you- can we just... sit here, for awhile? You don't have to say anything. And then... in a little bit, we'll go... do something, okay?"
Latooni Subota's first instinct is actually to decline. To let him calm down a little before she - well, goes with him.
But her second is to stay, to keep him company and make him comfortable. "We can," Latooni says, looking from Leo to the window and back again. "I've never seen Jupiter quite like this. It's... very pretty." It is, too - although sh efeels the same way about Earth from the Moon, or even just space around it.
"Yeah," Leo agrees quietly. He finds Jupiter much prettier than Earth, and definitely much prettier than the Moon... but, to be fair, he's a little biased. He grew up looking down at Jupiter; the sight of the gas giant's surface calls up a lot of memories for him.
Of course, not all of them are good.
His eloquent response to Latooni's observation given, Leo finally finds the nerve to look away from the wall and back at the planet. After a moment, he leans against Latooni a little more, and he sort of slides to the side, his head slumping down to rest on her shoulder.
"Gonna rest my eyes for a second..." he murmurs, as he closes his eyes.