[ OPEN ] One step forward, two steps back.

[imperfect_science]

Who: Carlos, his thoughts, and you.
Where: The roof of the Mansion
When: The night of March 2nd
Rating: PG
Summary: It's been a few days since his boyfriend disappeared from Wonderland, and Carlos is starting to realize that closed doors are a new theme in his life. Want to keep a sulking scientist company?

The Story:

Carlos has never been the kind of person that craves human contact the same way many other people do. He’s content to be alone more often than not. Do you know how much, important scientific work you can do when you have no close attachments to anyone? A lot of work. People are distracting as they are interesting- or maybe are distracting for that very reason. Either way, they tend to get in the way. That was how he’d felt about most everyone until a few years ago, before he’d moved to a strange town full of equally strange people. He’d fallen in love with one of those people despite every attempt not to. That very same man had been in Wonderland until just recently.

The door between their rooms is gone now, and it feels just like a bad joke. Why do doors keep disappearing?

Carlos had just gotten him back.

He sits on the roof of the Mansion looking up at the stars over Wonderland, not even pretending to chart the constellations overhead. There’s a lump in his throat and a gap in his memory that nags at him, its absence felt more keenly now than before. He might not remember, but the memories previously connected to the vanished one recall the shape of it, and they know that the occasion calls for some painful nostalgia. The Core has plucked the night on top of the Arby’s from Carlos's mind. That had been where, for the first time, Carlos had decided to give Cecil a chance. He'd taken a risk, let Cecil rest his head on his shoulder, and the two of them had looked up at the night sky together. It had been one of his fondest memories. But while that’s gone, he hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to have the empty space beside you filled up with someone who fits there perfectly.

Carlos might be content to be alone most nights, but tonight isn’t one of those times.

Comments

so late I'm sorry ;o;

[eatsyourscience]

Souji could relate to Carlos's situation. Someone he loves--someone very important to him at home, though they've never met there--has recently gone home, and Souji is still trying to deal with that. Not that that's why he's up on the roof right now, or why he approaches Carlos when he sees him.

"Carlos?"

He stops, standing a little ways away, waiting to see if his presence if wanted before he does anything like settle in.

No worries at all :D!

[imperfect_science]

It’s been a few days since Carlos has heard anyone call his name. It’s almost a shock, which explains the sort of stunned look on his face when he turns his head and attempts to make out the shape of Souji in the dark.

“Yes…? Oh, wait. I remember you.” His night vision isn’t the best, but it helps that the moonlight hits Souji’s light hair in a way that makes the color really stick out. You don’t see a lot of gray-haired high school kids. Carlos smiles as the recognition sinks in, though he still ends up looking mostly tired. “You made that amazing chicken for Christmas. Isn't it a little late for you to be outside?”

[eatsyourscience]

Souji smiles, just a little, when his cooking is praised. He moves a little closer and crouches down so he's not standing over Carlos. He still doesn't fully settle in on the roof, though.

"I'm used to being up late. And there's no where I have to be in the morning."

[imperfect_science]

“Lucky for you there’s no curfew in Wonderland.” He should probably be a responsible adult and advise Souji to go back inside anyway, but what’s the harm in him being out? Plus Carlos is secretly happy for the company, even if it is someone he’s barely begun to know.

“And what brings you out here? If it’s the weather, I don’t blame you.” He looks back up at the same constellation he’d been staring at before Souji had appeared. It looks a little like a laptop, he thinks, turned on its side at a weird angle. It’s a shame there are no books on Wonderland’s astronomy. “There isn't much else that's good about this place, but at least the weather is nice.” He definitely sounds a little bitter saying that. He had never really resented Wonderland that much before this moment.

[eatsyourscience]

"Lucky my uncle isn't here, too." Dojima had barely agreed to let him go out of the house after dark at home. Souji can't imagine what his uncle would think of the stuff he gets up to in Wonderland.

Souji's settling down to sit on the roof proper as Carlos says that last bit, and he peers over at him. He's silent for a few seconds, reflecting, trying to pick what to say from among several options that come to mind.

"It is nice." He looks at the stars, too. "There are other good things, sometimes."

[imperfect_science]

“Sometimes.” He’s sure Souji is right, logically, but he doesn’t feel that convinced of it in that moment. Hadn’t he been excited to come back to Wonderland just a few months ago, ready to continue researching its inner workings? That prospect seems so much less appealing now.

“Good really is a very relative term. You’re not wrong, but…” he closes his eyes and takes a slow, deep breath. “When you’ve experienced a better version of a good thing, dealing with the downgraded version makes it… a little more difficult to appreciate.”

[eatsyourscience]

Souji continues to peer at Carlos, expression neutral, turning those words over in his mind. Based on their last conversation, he has an idea of what the problem is, but it's a few seconds before he decides to give voice to it. If he's right, he still has no idea if it's something Carlos would want to talk about, or that he would want to talk about it with Souji, anyway. They only just acquaintances, after all.

"Is Cecil gone?"

[imperfect_science]

It’s the first time anyone has said it out loud, and there’s an unexpected little stab of pain that comes with hearing the truth out in the open air. It occurs to Carlos then that he should have heard someone talking about Cecil being gone before now. He should have told people, made an announcement… done something so people knew. Instead, he’d talked to no one and then ended up out here.

“You’ve got very good powers of deduction. I’m sure you did well in school.” He tries to make it sound light, but the words come out a little less than even. “Yes, he’s… back home. Which is good, really, because I know he missed being home. Most of us do, right? He’s back in the place he loves, doing what he loves, and… he won’t even remember any of this, so that isn’t so bad…” The justifications just won’t stop coming, but he can’t not try to at least think about this in some positive, logical way.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji lets Carlos go on. He's done the same before, in a few less words.

"It'll be lonely until you go back, too, though." And even if Cecil comes back here someday before that happens, it'll be different, and that will hurt, too. "I'm sorry."

He apologizes not just that Carlos is in this situation, but that he's probably bringing him down by insisting on saying things like that.

[imperfect_science]

“It might be lonely, but… I’ll be fine.” His tone is determined as he says that, like he won’t accept any other state of being. “That’s one of the things a scientist always is.” He frowns, eyes moving down to the forest across the courtyard and past the gardens, temporarily distracted from the stars.

“It’s alright. Well, it’s not alright that this is happening to us, but that’s not your fault. It just goes to show that we need to figure out what makes Wonderland what it is. We can’t keep living at the mercy of its whims like this anymore, and so many of us have people waiting back home.” That’s a more palatable way to think about it, rather than ‘separated from indefinitely.’ “If I remember correctly, you do too. I still intend to do what I can to help you with that.”

[eatsyourscience]

Souji smiles, just a little, at Carlos's determination. It's easy to give up--he's gotten to that point, himself, after struggling for so long. But hearing from others who want to make a difference always reminds him his own accountability in all of this.

"A scientist can probably make a lot of difference in getting things figured out."

[imperfect_science]

What Souji says makes something go tight in Carlos’s chest. It’s not a bad feeling, necessarily. Maybe a little nostalgic, and… hopeful. Souji was just saying something out loud that Carlos had often thought, something he truly believed in the majority of the time. Since Cecil had disappeared, Carlos honestly hadn’t thought much about what he could do about it. But now that Souji mentioned it…

“You’re right. A scientist can make a difference. That’s part of what a scientist does.” The more he says it out loud, the more reassuring it becomes. There’s a hint of a smile on his face as he half-turns to look at Souji. “Thank you.”

[eatsyourscience]

Souji nods, pleased to see Carlos's mood begin to turn, if just a little. Reassuring people, helping them through things, that's kind of his thing. He's glad to know that he can still do it alright.

"There's a lot to get done. But it's okay to miss Cecil, too."

[imperfect_science]

“I wouldn’t know where to start if I had to try to stop missing him. It’s impossible- or at the very least, extremely unlikely. It would make things easier, but missing someone is… it’s proof that you had them, even for a little while. It means you were together, once, and that’s not something I want to forget.” Even if Wonderland doesn’t give him much of a choice sometime in the future. But that’s a worry for another night.

“You know, you’re pretty sensible for a teenager.”

[eatsyourscience]

"If you count the years I've been in Wonderland, I'm about 21 now." Souji doesn't feel all that grown up, though. He shrugs. "I've just lost some people in the same way since I got here."

He doesn't think he can understand exactly how Carlos feels--every person, every relationship, and every situation is different, after all--but he's got a good basis for empathizing with him.

[imperfect_science]

“Oh, right… I keep forgetting how time sort of doesn’t work here. It’s pretty similar to how time doesn’t work back where I’m from, actually, except we still age there. It’s just that the clocks don’t work, and the days tend to be of variable lengths…” The talk comes easier now, and Carlos just feels… lighter as a whole. This talk has been good for him.

“But you’re still young either way. I don’t think I was near as level-headed in my 20’s, or that I would have been in light of…” he gestures around. “All of this. Wonderland’s chaos. The way it gives and takes so randomly.”

[eatsyourscience]

"I've had some practice." Souji looks at the stars, then back at Carlos. "But I don't think it's possible to ever really get used to this place. If you did, I think it'd be something to worry about."