Requiem of Reality » Places

         

Lucien Damani

---

Once inside, Lucien directed his paranoia towards the new environment. It seemed sound, but who knew how long that was going to last. He gave a mental shrug. Oh well. Though it was getting a little easier, at this point it was still hard to care about anything for extended periods of time.

And with that, the lavender-haired man turned his attention towards the person he’d abducted. Despite himself, the side of Lucien’s mouth twitched upward. Props to her for giving a proper greeting, considering the circumstances. It would be simply unforgivable for him to not return the gesture. He pulled his hand out from hers. "Oh, and hi... I guess."

But at that moment, Micah burst in, trailed by the girls. It was like a light had been switched on somewhere inside of Lucien. Maybe he’d become a little too dependant on their companionship? But whatever. How important could that be? It wasn’t like he was trying to be a loner. The exact opposite, actually. Wait. No, that couldn’t be right either...-

Micah took one look at Lucien and spread his arms wide open. Lucien blinked, his eyes watering. His brows creased together and lower lip began to tremble.

Lucien practically flung himself onto the open invitation, sobbing unabashedly. "M-Micaaaahhhhh....” He warbled, clutching the back of the sailor’s jacket. "You’re here! I-I’m so d-depressed... I don’t- I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore...." The two men were about of equal height, so Lucien had to make do with burying his tear-soaked face into Micah’s shoulder.

Eventually, however, Lucien pulled back, using his glove-covered hand to dab delicately at the underneath of his eyes. He took a deep breath. “I-I’m fine now.” He sniffed. In truth, he was feeling a little better, perhaps. Maybe.

As Micah, true to form, began dishing out commands, Lucien, true to form, wasn’t paying much attention. Still feeling a little shaky, Lucien inched behind a certain Victorian girl, fingers absentmindedly entangling themselves in her hair, still blinking tears out of his eyes. Man, he just lost it back there, didn’t he? Good thing Nadezda still had hair he could mess around with. No telling what would happen to him if it had all fallen out since the last time he saw her!

Lucien didn’t really pay attention to the new people, though of course he noticed them enter. So what? He was feeling a little better at this point, so the more the merrier. Nevertheless, Lucien watched them from the corner of his eye, keeping the majority of his attention directed towards combing out Nadezda’s hair with his fingers. How therapeutic! But then they needed to walk forward, and Lucien let out a little huff of irritation.

Though he freed his hands from her hair, Lucien wasn’t feeling particularly keen on giving her up entirely. Sociable? Why in the world should he be feeling sociable? He grumbled to himself, engulfing one of Nadezda’s hand with both of his, and toying with her fingers as they walked.

“Lucy, is that your family?” Elara. Lucien stiffened. Well... maybe he could be sociable for a little bit. Maybe.

Lucien looked up, regarding the pink haired fellow with quick eyes. Nope. Definitely not family. He resumed massaging the ensnared Nadezda’s pinkie. “No.” Lucien murmured. "Elly, my hair is lavender, not pink." He patiently corrected the small girl. All of that crying had calmed Lucien significantly, but left him with quite the dark mood, that while it was getting lighter, was still rather dark.

Thump. Lucien froze as Micah suddenly collapsed in front of him. Ouch. That had to hurt. But, luckily, the brightly-dressed girl began to look the sailor over before Lucien might be inclined to. Ironically, it seemed that all Micah needed was water. Lucien dimly remembered leaving his water jug in the lobby. But at least he wasn’t going to die. Good. That would be gross.

Lucien eyed Micah’s unconscious body for a bit before finally pulling away from Nadezda. He ignored the newcomers, hooking onto Micah’s jacket and slinging the larger man’s arm over his shoulder. Though Micah had him beat in terms of muscle, Lucien had enough inches of height on him to be able to drag the sailor into the lecture hall, or whatever the room used to be. But once he found a suitable patch of carpet, Lucien freed himself from the extra baggage as quickly as possible, meandering back to the group in time to witness little Elara chew out his “relative”.

Ah, how cute. And flattering. While Lucien didn’t particularly consider himself very responsible, he had just dragged Micah’s unconscious body to safety, so he supposed the praise wasn’t too off at that point of time.

Feeling a little better, Lucien turned to the brightly-dressed girl. “I’m Lucien. We met earlier.” And, as an afterthought, he gestured towards Nadezda. Poor girl, she was probably tripping over herself to come up with something to say. "This is Nadezda."

Lucien listened to the Nayu guy cuss a lot about books before deciding to reply, face blank even under his sunglasses. "There’s going to be a hurricane here pretty soon, so you guys should go down the hall and grab as many books as you can, then come back here to take your time picking one."

He didn’t really know why he was being nice to these people. But whatever.