Julian Blackthorn (nottoleavethee) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-06-14 06:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2019 june, ~25 points, ~~julian blackthorn (nottoleavethee), ~~usagi tsukino (moon_tiara) |
WHO: Julian Blackthorn and Usagi Tsukino
WHAT: Talking
WHERE: Hinkles
WHEN: Recently
WARNINGS: Nah
STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Since getting injured by a vampire in New Orleans, Usagi had stayed home most of the time to recuperate and rest. She’d had really bad headaches at first, which had been annoying, but on the bright side, it could’ve been worse. At least she didn’t get bit or anything like that. She wasn’t sure what she would’ve done if she’d gotten bite and possibly turn into a vampire. Maybe she and Setsuna would’ve figured it out but still. She was lucky in that regard. She’d also been very lucky Star had been around and was able to get Usagi back home.
Now, though, she was feeling a bit better. Better enough to actually attempt to study for her math retake test. Since Julian had been such an amazing help before, she decided to ask for his assistance and they agreed to meet at Hinkles. Usagi had already arrived and found an empty table for them. She ordered her food and waited.
***
Julian was right on time, as he always was. When he saw Usagi, he slid into the seat across from her, looking at her with sincere concern. Humans couldn’t wear healing runes, so their injuries took much longer to heal than was normal for a Shadowhunter. He felt bad for her, but putting an Iratze on her would kill her or turn her Forsaken, so it wans’t like he could somehow help her along the path to healing.
“How are you feeling?” He asked. “What happened exactly? You shouldn’t have gone alone. If that’s what you did, I mean.”
He really didn’t know how she’d gotten herself injured, but he felt bad about it.
***
Usagi was the one who was usually late, but this time she was actually being punctual for once. Maybe the hit on her head was more harder than she thought. Or maybe it was the fact that they were meeting at Hinkles and that usually meant delicious food.
Yeah, it was definitely the food.
She smiled when she saw him. "I'm doing good. Much better now, at least," she told him. "And I had Star with me. Not at first, but I ran into her when it happened. I'm usually a better fighter than that. I've fought all kinds of monsters, but not since I arrived. Guess I'm rusty." Her head had been bruised, but her ego probably a bit more so.
***
“Well, I’m glad it was nothing serious. And I’m glad Star was there.” She was more than a little weird, but definitely trustworthy. And she’d probably made sure that things didn’t go worse for Usagi than they already had.
“And I’m trying to keep myself in shape too, mainly for the same reasons. I’m afraid I’ve let my training fall a little bit by the wayside. Concentrating on school and everything so much.” And concentrating on avoiding Emma had taken a lot of time too. “But Emma and I are going to start training again now that summer’s here. We can’t lose our edge. If we get sent back, our lives depend on it.”
***
"Me too." Both that it wasn't terrible and that Star had been there. Usagi couldn't imagine what would've happened if the weird magical girl hadn't been there when she had. She didn't even want to think about it.
She nodded. "It's just that there hasn't been much danger. Even the so called 'monsters' here don't hurt anyone." She had used air quotations for monsters because, well, none of the were really monsters. The werewolves and witches and demons and vampires were all friendly and didn't hurt anyone. "It's easy to just relax here. I mean, I've found it easy." Then again, she was lazy. Of course, she'd find it easy.
"But that's cool. Maybe I should start training too." Maybe she'd ask Setsuna later, see if she could help out with that. "Speaking of which, how are things with you and Emma?"
***
“I know, it’s weird, isn’t it? I’m used to vampires pretty much being jerks and werewolves having serious anger issues, and demons always being slayed when necessary. But here...I mean...they’re nice. I’d feel kind of like a jerk if I went around slaying them.” So he hadn’t, of course. He’d thrown himself into his academics because he enjoyed that, but there was still that little bit of him that really missed being a fighter. A defender of humanity from the unseen dangers of the Shadow World.
He blushed when she mentioned Emma.
“Well, you know, the same.” Unless Chris could come up with something to break the curse, it always would be the same.
***
"Very weird," Usagi agreed. "I mean, I always believed everyone had good in them. Even the monsters and demons and the most evil beings of all. Sadly, I'm usually wrong and the ones I've met were evil. And as happy as I am to see the ones here being good, it's still strange to me sometimes." But she was also glad. As willing as she would protect the innocent, she didn't want to fight unless she had to.
She frowned a bit. "That's too bad. I was hoping something would change." She felt a little bad for his situation. She couldn't imagine loving someone but unable to actually be with them.
***
“I don’t know,” Julian said thoughtfully. “I mean, I’ve met demons. And I have to disagree, I don’t think they have any good in them.” And he’d met a person or two he would really question too. But Julian wasn’t an optimist, really. He was a realist. He took the world like he found it, without expectations of it being good or bad. He took what he got and did his best to manipulate it into something that he liked.
“Well, I’m hoping it will eventually. But it’s not easy. None of the Warlocks back home have been able to figure out anything, and usually they’re right on top of that.”
At least Magnus was.
***
Usagi was definitely an optimistic person. She was the type that believe love could save everyone and everything, that hope and love was the most powerful things in existence. Even when it was proven otherwise, she still believed in those two things. "Well, at least the ones here are pretty nice," she shrugged.
Another thing was that Usagi was a hopeless romantic. So it probably wasn't a surprise when she said, "I'm sure it'll all work out." And she believed it would. Even if it didn't, she wouldn't stop hoping that Julian could be with Emma somehow, someday.
***
Julian honestly didn’t know what he believed. He wanted to be with Emma, but there were certain things in life that were just impossible. Like getting Livvy back. Or his dad. Or Mark being the older brother he’d always wanted him to be. Maybe Emma was one of those things that could never happen, no matter how much he wanted it.
“Yeah,” he said, just accepting that he heard her statement.
“So your math test. What went wrong?”
It was more satisfying for Julian to deal with something he could actually fix, like Usagi’s test grade.
***
Usagi didn't quite believe him, but he didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it, so she let it slide. Even if it meant they'd be talking about math now, she wouldn't pressure him if he wasn't comfortable or anything.
"It was the algebra," she told him, her face turning into a pout. "All the numbers and letters confuse me." Learning all the numbers and formulas were bad enough. Did they really have to add letters to it as well?
***
“Well, don’t think of it that way,” he said. “Think of it just that the letters are numbers we don’t know yet. They’re all numbers. It’s just like saying ‘person a’ or ‘person b’ when you don’t mean that person’s actually a letter, do you?”
Julian went ahead and explained it to her, patiently and succinctly, going over the parts that she had more trouble with for longer. He could definitely be a teacher with his patience - he’d learned it since he’d for all intents and purposes been a father since he was twelve.
When he was finished, he smiled back at her.
“I think you’ll do fine. Part of it is that you just need to have a little confidence in yourself.”
Honestly, that was a big part of learning anything.
***
"No," she replied before falling silent and listening as much as she could to what he was saying. Since it was math, though, which she found it boring and confusing, she might have missed a thing or two. But she really did try to listen. Good thing he was quite patient with her. Honestly, he deserved a medal or something for that.
"Okay, guess I understand a little better know," she said after he finished. "It's kind of funny, but I have confidence in other things but when it comes to math? Not so much."
***
“Nah, not really,” He said. “We all have things we’re confident about, and things we aren’t. That’s part of being alive.” Julian was good at all of his studies, but he wasn’t the fighter that Emma was and that sometimes made him a little less confident, even if he was her parabatai.
“I’ve always liked math, but I think it’s because there’s always an answer one way or another, not like so many other things in life. There’s a solution, and if you work hard enough you can always find it.”
***
"That's true, I suppose." Usagi could be quite confident in a lot of things, even sometimes over confident and she ended up in way over her head sometimes. But she still kept trying, no matter how many times she failed or couldn't do certain things due to her clumsiness. She just wasn't the type to give up easily.
"Guess I'm not as good as finding the answers as you are." She did know that math always had the answers, she just had trouble figuring it out. "But you do make it a little bit easier to understand." Not completely but he did explain things a bit better. Definitely better than any of her teachers ever did at least.
***
“You’ll get it,” he smiled. “I’m completely certain you will.” Maybe having that confidence in her would help where she couldn’t find it herself.
“So you’re a fighter too, right?” He thought that he’d seen her talk about that before, and he liked that idea. That, probably, was something she did have confidence in, if his experience with Emma was any indication.
***
"Thanks," she smiled. It did kind of helped that someone believed in her as well. Most people back home just sort of thought she was a hopeless case when it came to schoolwork and other things. It was nice that someone didn't.
"Yep! I'm a Senshi and we fight monsters back home. Except I have to transform first to access my powers." She usually didn't tell anyone and back home, she kept her other identity a secret. But she had talked to Setsuna and Hotaru before, and they had figured it was okay if other people knew.
***
“Transform into what?” It wasn’t an entirely strange idea. After all, werewolves transformed to do their thing too, so Julian had some experience. But the way that she talked, it wasn’t a wolf she was transforming into.
“And what kind of monsters?”
He was obviously very interested.
***
"Sailor Moon," she replied with a grin. "And sometimes my past life self as well. I was a princess on the moon." She only transforms into Princess Serenity when things were dire and when simply being Sailor Moon wasn't enough.
"Youma, mostly. And people who have been turned into monsters. I usually have to heal them and return them to normal."
***
“Oh, like...you were born on the moon?” Julian had learned to suspend disbelief in this place, because truly anything could be real here. He’d discovered that the hard way.
“So you don’t kill them? You save them?” That sounded nice. He wished that the monsters in his world could be saved. Unfortunately, once you were a downworlder, there was no turning back.
***
"In my past life, yes. I was a Princess there and lived with my mom and other Senshi. But we were attacked and my mother had to send us to Earth where we were reincarnated, and well, here I am," she ended with a shrug.
She shook her head. "No, of course not! I could never kill anyone, not even if they were truly a monster." It just wasn't in her nature. She was more liked to see the good in people, even try and help them.
***
“So you...died?” He said. That sounded terrible, even if she had been reincarnated.
Listening to her talk, Julian couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He’d killed Downworlders. He’d had to. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but something that was simply required of Shadowhunters from time to time. He hadn’t killed many, sure, and it was something he’d never forget, but it had happened.
“Why not?” He asked. “I mean, why couldn’t you do it if you knew they were truly bad?”
***
Usagi just nodded slowly, pretty much confirming that yes, she had died in her previous life. "I didn't know what happened at first. All of our memories were erased, but obviously we got them back." It had been hard reliving all that pain and chaos and destruction, but that was her old life. Sure, Princess Serenity was still a part of her, but she was Usagi Tsukino now.
"Because it's mean!" she said, which sounded lame but it was how she felt. "And no one's ever truly bad. There's good in everyone. Just some don't have much, but it's still there." It was what she believed anyway.
***
“I’m not sure everyone does,” he said softly. “Demons don’t.” That was the whole point of them, wasn’t it? “And there are people who have no respect for life, people who can’t be cured of their darkness.” This conversation was making him feel like a bit of a bad person, but it was what it was. Julian liked to think he was a good person, and he was, for the most part. But he wasn’t as pure as Usagi was.
“I’m sorry that you died. But I’m glad that you came back.”
He considered her a friend, after all.
***
"I still believe even demons can be good." Even if they were created to be evil, she still thought they could be good if they wanted to.
"Thanks, I'm glad I came back too. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to drink these delicious milkshake," she grinned. And eat cake and cookies and cupcakes and all kinds of sweets. Those were things she was grateful for.
She was about to say something but her phone buzzed. "Oh, Setsuna says I need to head home, so I should get going. Thanks for all your help again. Hopefully, I'll pass my make up test. I'll see you later."
***