Summary:Returning after the incident in the parking lot, Keiko and Koa speak Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
The drive to the house on Willow Street doesn't take long and Keiko lets them in the front door. The house is tidy but with that lived in feeling - one that has a small child attached. Keiko had directed Koa to the kitchen to find the vodka whilst she saw to Elena.
For a short while the senior agent had been subjected to 'family life'. At least until Keiko got Elena down to sleep.
"Do you want more Vodka?" She asks as she enters the lounge again. "And shall I see to your side now?"
"What exactly were you planning on doing to it." Koa shakes the bottle next to him to show that he has more Vodka. Interesting that she asks him things since that does put off the overall impression that he's in charge. Is she doing that deliberately or is it just the way she's used to communicating?
"She seems to be coming along well all things considered." That is to say 'considering that she spent her first few years in a hell realm surrounded by demons and slowly corrupting parents she seems to be doing well. How long that will remain the case is unclear. Koa knows better than most that demonic surprises don't always come all at once. Sometimes they pop up when they're least expected and most inconvenient.
The way Keiko is talking is different to when she came back from Limbo. Then it was statements, now at least, she's asking. And maybe she see's Koa as superior to her. "Cleaning it with Vodka and maybe stitching it. I don't have any demon gut but I've got a clean needle and twine."
There's a glitter in her eyes, even though she doesn't smile, that says she may well be joking.
"Elena … is doing well, yes. She reads well and likes school. Everyone is careful to make sure she has a normal childhood." Except Keiko. It's hard for the spirit caller.
"I'll pass thanks." Koa says with a flat look and a wry expression. No need for field surgery here. They actually have doctors he can go see if he wants someone to sew his side up. Even if that was a joke it's probably best to make that clear.
"No one in this house ever had a normal childhood, Keiko. You included. I suppose it stands to reason that they all think it's important that Elena be allowed to have one. It would be very easy for her to grow up around the weirdness."
It's a weird kind of family she's got and only gets weirder when you go to extended family.
"If you're sure. Let me clean it at least. I can be gentle." She can, though Koa wouldn't know that.
"No, they haven't and they're focussed on it for her. Did I tell you she teleported the other week?" Keiko's not sure she did. "I'm still happy about not being able to go to her school. If she wasn't happy there, I would change it."
While they're talking, Keiko has fetched the Vodka from the freezer and topped up his tumbler and hers. "How do you do it, Koa? Do what we're about to do and leave your … family … behind, knowing you might not return?"
.~{:--------------:}~.
"I don't have much of a family." Koa responds. "And I sort of left them behind a long time ago. They're not in this world and with the work I do it's safer for it to stay that way." He's quiet and takes another drink.
"I see them on holidays and such of course. It's not like I never speak to them. I'm just… Distant. I have to be." It's safer for everyone and as clich%<233> as that sounds, it's also true.
Keiko pokes Koa, not in the wound but near it. "I said let me clean it." She's a bossy little thing when she wants to be.
"It would be easier, I think, to be distant to Elena." It's a quiet admission. "Like I was in Limbo and when we came back. But … " the small peruvian lets out a breath "I don't want to be, Koa. I want my daughter to know her mother. To be able to experience what I couldn't. You told me it would be hard though."
"Isn't it lonely for you, Koa? Not allowing yourself to get close to people?" beat "It is for me. It's better now but still …"
"You're going to clean it with that." Koa points to the Vodka. "It'll be fine." It might not be fine. And she might be able to get the Medics tomorrow to tell him it won't be fine but he appears to be stubborn about this which is not normal Koa. He's so… sensible, normally.
"I told you it would be hard and it will be. But being a mother is, or so I hear. Not in my own experience, obviously." Koa is so not cut out for motherhood.
"It is yes." Koa says taking a breath and letting it out. "Most things are. Most important things, anyway."
"No. With this." Keiko brings up the first aid kit she got from the kitchen. "Stop being so stubborn and let me see it. Or I'll pray to the Darkchilde and get her here." It's not Koa but he's always been a bit curmudgeonly towards the spirit caller.
And no, she's not letting up. He might remember calling her frustrating and stubborn.
"It is what is. I … didn't think I'd ever be in a place where I didn't want to leave someone, but I don't want to leave Elena alone." Whatever Keiko's thoughts on Motherhood are aren't spoken.
"It doesn't have to be as lonely, Koa. You … have isolated yourself. More so since Nightmare and what happened with Ananym. I don't like it. I want my friend back."
Koa lets out a long, slow exhale. His nostrils flare and finally he inclines his head. "Fine. Do it." It's almost demonic the way he says it. He'll allow her to do it. Not that he's giving in and letting her have her way. That's also unlike Koa but given what happened to him… maybe more understandable.
"Why do you think he's gone somewhere?" Her friend that is. Has he isolated himself? Maybe. He was always unwilling to bring trouble down on other people, she just never saw that until that point.
Keiko gives Koa a flat look. One demon to another. She lived in Limbo, she recognises the attitude. Piotr did it. He does it. Illyana does it. Sometimes she wonders if she'll ever be any higher on the pecking order.
She's a good little soldier though and doesn't rankle - too much.
Without asking, Koa's shirt is lifted and he's shifted so she can see the injury. It's going to hurt but she was right, she is gentle.
"Because he has. He's changed. Just as I did. My friend used to talk to me. Offer advice and … food." Koa used to feed her a lot. "You … growl as often as not. And you've shut me out." It's not often that Keiko shows hurt or pain but it's there for just a moment.
Koa reaches up and feels the markings on his neck. They're warm to the touch. He blows out a sigh and lets some of the tension out of his spine. It's not just demonic instinct that is his problem, he actually has much less of that than Keiko does. It's a predator's instinct. And he's been a predator for so much longer than she's known him.
"I'm slipping Keiko. Every day my control over my other half is less and less. I don't ever remember being it this bad." Beat. "I can get you a pizza though, if that's what you're really after." He gives her a small smirk.
"I just fed you this time, I don't need or want you to do that." Keiko shakes her head, cleaning the wound as best she can. He can feel the saline water sluicing over it. "This is bad, Koa. It's going to need stitches - you should have gone to medical, straight away. I should have taken you."
But she'd wanted to get home to Elena.
Seeing him touch the marks on his neck, Keikos fingers trace over them as well. "You once told me that to be brittle was to shatter. You don't seem to be taking your own advice."
Koa hisses at the injury a bit and takes a breath. "I'm not trying to be strong, Keiko. I'm trying to remain myself. To remain in control." And he's losing that fight. It had stabilized but with everything going on he's got less and less control. Maybe, just maybe, things will start changing. Nightmare is gone after all. He's not really alone, not anymore. Not with Keiko working with him and Illyana about. But the damage done doesn't go away that simply and he's still struggling to contain the fallout.
"If you'd have taken me we'd both have been there all night. I can get it taken care of in the morning. As I said, it'll be fine."
"Nearly done." Keiko murmurs, patting the wound with some gauze gently - it's going to hurt but not a heap. What will hurt is the antiseptic cream she applies next - once the sting goes, it will be numb but getting there is a journey.
"You have separated yourself and keep him on such a tight leash. Now he is coming out. He is you and you are him - it's like my spirits, isn't it?" Funny how the tables have turned a little bit. "It was you that said I needed to make friends with them. Is it any surprise the other part of you is rebelling?"
"And no, you aren't fine."
"Keiko the other part of me is what took a bite out of you." Koa points out. "It's not a nice part of me. It's not a bad part of me. It's not evil. But it doesn't care about the same things." There is, actually, only one point of agreement between the man and the predator and she is not currently present. Though Keiko IS hers. It's entirely possible that the predator recognizes that now.
"But you're suggesting I need to find a way to make peace with whatever is happening to me. Even if I CAN stop it."
"Your other part was welcome to that. It was hungry and needed it…" Keiko says quietly, finishing the dressing on that wound. Oh yes, in the morning, he's probably going to have Keiko at his door to hustle him to sick bay on the way to her meeting with Pandora Peters.
Keiko is unaware about the new arrangement between Koa and Illyana.
"Maybe I am, Koa. People change. If you can't find peace, you're going to tear yourself apart. Believe me … I know."
"You would, wouldn't you." Know that is. Koa lets out another hissing sigh. It does hurt that wound and he probably does need stitches or magical healing. Which he can get as long as that sword doesn't somehow prevent it. Which… it might.
"I'll… see what I can do Keiko." That's more like Koa. He knows she's talking sense. "You found peace after all. Maybe there's hope for me."
Maybe there is. But what IS it that Pandora Peters wants to talk to her about?
"I found my daughter and the Darkchilde took me." Peace? Keiko's not sure about that. "The cream will take effect in a moment, the pain will lessen and there's more vodka to numb it further." Cleaning the mess up, the peruvian disappears for a moment to dispose of the rubbish in the kitchen.
When she returns, she has another bottle of vodka and flops onto the couch next to Koa. "There is hope for you, Koa. You aren't the same man you were, you aren't the same man you're going to be. And that's as it should be. You will always have me as a friend, no matter what."
And what does Pandora want to talk to the Probie about? Maybe after tomorrow she won't have a job.
"Thank you Keiko." Koa says. He doesn't say it often, or well. Less than he used to. That's a sure sign that Limbo is creeping into him as it did her. Koa takes another drink and then gets out his phone.
"Alright. Leftovers were good but I'm still hungry. Chinese?"
It's better than taking a bite out of her soul, yes?