dangodragon (dangodragon) wrote in strangergamesrp, @ 2012-10-29 12:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | log, tomas, uchiha itachi |
[log] Little Boy Blue
Who: Uchiha Itachi, Tomas
When: October 5th
Where: Commons and Cafeteria
What: After promising to fix Tomas’ toy, Itachi shows up to do just that. He’s instantly smitten, and Tomas gets a present.
Warnings: None except cuteness.
Open or Closed: Closed
Observable: Yes
Tomas had found himself a nice little unobtrusive corner in the common room, and sat with his legs pulled up in the chair, his wounded bear held to his chest closely. He didn’t know who had torn Pooky up: it hadn’t occurred to him that someone would harm his teddy bear. Harm him? Sure, he could have expected that. But he’d only left Pooky alone for a moment, and he didn’t see what kind of fun it would be for anyone to hurt something that couldn’t even cry out.
His little face was fairly miserable-looking, and he was dressed in loose-fitting blue pajamas, since he didn’t have any actual clothes yet. The soft blue ribbon at his throat was several shades lighter than the pajamas, but he didn’t mind being a little mismatched, being a riot of blue, between his hair and clothing.
He tried to keep his eyes open for the man who had promised to meet him, but his attention kept being caught by the people coming and going through the common room. So many different types of people from so many worlds. And every time he got a sense of some sort of power, he froze for a second, terrified of catching the familiar feel of Talent.
Itachi thought a blue haired boy with a bear would be easy to find. After a moment, Itachi saw the boy in a corner. Itachi approached slowly, trying not to startle the boy since he seemed to already be frightened by those around them. Itachi put a soft smile on his face and kept his hands in view.
Itachi didn’t come with his guard down. For all he knew, this was a trap. How someone could know that he would respond to a video like that, he didn’t know, but someone had messed around in his head before. Anything could be possible. Itachi tried not to let any of this show as he stopped in front of the boy.
“This would be the patient?” Itachi asked.
Power. Tomas didn’t know for sure, because this wasn’t his world and things didnt’t work the same way. But the sense of power he’d been getting from some others came again, and he bit at his lip for a second before responding.
That wasn’t the only thing that surprised him, though. He hadn’t realized from the short previous remote communication that this person was young, perhaps younger than his own actual age. Not that he planned to give that away anytime soon.
Wide blue eyes turned up to face the young man, and the effort behind that motion was really, the fear genuine.
“Yeah. I left him alone for a minute and came back and...” Tomas held the bear out, turned him over, showing the rip where he’d so carefully pushed the stuffing back in.
Itachi crouched down to the boy’s level and peered at the bear He wondered who would slash up a bear for sun, or if it could be payback for something. Intimidation. The child looked frightened. Itachi didn’t know how long the boy had been here, but he saw the fear. Fear directed at Itachi, who had only offered to be nice. Did this boy fear everyone, or did he sense something about Itachi that made him fearful?
“It doesn’t look too bad.” Itachi shifted so that he could see the room behind him. They were in a good spot to watch the room. Coincidence or not? “My name’s Itachi.” Itachi set the small sewing kit he’d been carrying in his lap.
“I’m Tomas.”
The voice came out a little rough again, as it had when he’d made the video. Tomas wrinkled his nose, coughed, and bowed his head a little. “S-sorry. I have a hard time talking when I’m nervous sometimes. I’m...”
There were a lot of things he could say, and normally he’d stopped to think about it more. But here in this world it wasn’t just that he looked like a child, he was as helpless as one, or at least almost so. It was throwing him off quite a bit.
“Not used to being on my own yet.”
Itachi nodded slowly, wondering how old the boy was. He didn’t look much older than Sasuke. he would be younger than Itachi, that was certain. Itachi tipped his head. “We could take this to the cafeteria and get you something warm to drink.”
Itachi pulled out some spools of thread and eyed the bear’s stomach. Oddly, he still had a spool of hideously green thread he’d used on Sasuke’s stuffed friend. “I think I have some thread that matches your bear. The repair shouldn’t be very noticeable,” Itachi assured the boy, trying to remember that this boy was older than Sasuke. He was not a needy six who adored his older brother.
Itachi would have to watch his step.
Tomas smiled brightly at that. He was still somewhat intimidated, but he was trying not to be. After all, this guy was trying to help. It wasn’t Itachi’s fault that Tomas kept managing to spook himself. He gave a silent nod, and then pushed himself up from his position, taking a furtive look around before he stepped out of the relative shadow he’d been in.
He couldn’t help being nervous, though he supposed if his senses weren’t wrong and Itachi did have some kind of Talent, that could work for him as well as against him.
He reached out and slipped a small hand around Itachi’s arm, clinging.
As he stood and re-zipped his sewing kit, Itachi startled as Tomas took his arm. He didn’t move for a weapon. He did give Tomas a quick look over, trying to decide if the boy could be trying to get close for a blow. He kept having to remind himself to be aware of the boy, and that Tomas could be as dangerous as anyone here. So far, it didn’t seem to be the case, but things could change.
Itachi carefully guided them towards the cafeteria, curbing the instinct to put at arm around Tomas’s shoulder, as he might have done for Sasuke. This is not your little brother. He actually trusts you. Or pretended to.
“How long have you been here?” Itachi asked. Responsible action: research the target.
“I just arrived,” Tomas said, very quietly. He carried the bear very carefully, as if dropping it would cause more damage, perhaps unmendable. As if it were a wounded child and not a toy. He knew better, of course, logically. But that often didn’t mean a lot to Tomas.
He frowned. “Yesterday, I think? Or the day before? Things seem a little.. fuzzy here.” He paused. “It feels like when you have a long weekend or something and don’t have to be up on time and suddenly you wake up thinking it’s a school day but it’s not.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a long weekend...” If not going to the Academy, there had been clan training to attend to. Every moment must be filled, unless he’d been stolen by Shisui. Then people assumed they were training, when they were usually just playing around, being children.
If Tomas had just arrived, then it would be less likely he would try to attack Itachi. He probably did need help, or maybe even some kind of protection. Itachi hoped his presence wouldn’t put a target on the boy’s back.
“The days here are longer,” Itachi informed the boy.
“Oh.” Tomas considered that for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “That explains it.”
He frowned at the idea of never having a long weekend. Of course, he hadn’t had any since he started working - he hardly took any breaks from work at all - but he had decided to tell people he was still in school. So he went with that.
“At my school sometimes we get extra days, but then they always throw me of a little. Sometimes on days off I spend all day painting anyway - my teachers like me for that - but sometimes I go out and play.”
He paused, his voice dropping a little more again.
“I want to go back to school. I was supposed to play ball with my friends this weekend.”
“Maybe you’ll get sent back the day you left,” Itachi offered hopefully, trying to make Tomas feel better. Itachi hoped that would be the case. He wondered, if this wasn’t the case, how much time Kisame would spend looking for him. Itachi glanced around the cafeteria as the walked in. He would choose a table in the corner, if they could find on. Those tables were usually snatched up very quickly.
“Do you like tea?” Itachi finally remembered to ask. As young as Tomas might be, maybe he didn’t?
Tomas wrinkled his nose a little, considering it. He didn’t really think anyone could send him home to the day he came from; that just seemed ridiculous to him. Like time travel, and he was pretty sure no one could really do that, or at least not for more than a few seconds. Then again, he didn’t have a lot of understanding of some of the bigger “magical” things that were rumored to happen outside of his sphere of influence.
“Tea is okay...” he said, as if that were what he’d been musing over. He did like holding ‘tea parties’ with his toys, but there was hardly ever real tea involved, and when there was, he sweetened it quite heavily. He tugged at Itachi’s arm a little. “Do you think.. they have cocoa? I had coffee, but then I couldn’t sleep so maybe I should... lay off it.”
That was a hard thing to admit.
“I’m sure they do, and hot cocoa would be better for your than coffee,” A slightly lecturing tone slipped in. Kids should not drink coffee! Itachi didn’t even drink coffee, but he didn’t really like bitter things. Life was already filled with bitter--why make it worse?
Itachi resisted the urge to pat Tomas on the head. “I’ll go get some hot cocoa from the drone--why don’t you pick out a place for us to sit?” Itachi would be interested to see where Tomas chose.
Tomas nodded solemnly, though he refused to actually give up coffee no matter how good it would be for him. That was no point in saying so though, and he’d been overindulging since it was readily available. He gave itachi’s arm a little squeeze before he stepped away from him, turning to look around and decide where to sit.
He wasn’t used to places like this cafeteria. It wasn’t quite so easy to hide in as one of the little pubs would have been back home, and the crowd was so... mixed. All different kinds of people, and no idea who would be likely to cause him harm or not.
He gave a little shiver, tugged his bear close against him carefully, and then picked his way over to a table near a wall, turning his chair a little before he sat in it to be sure he had a clear enough view of the room.
Itachi procured tea for himself, hot chocolate for Tomas, and a small plate of cookies. Itachi didn’t intend to eat them--he would risk getting crumbs inside of the bear. Itachi carried his burdens to Tomas’ table, setting them down carefully as he noted how the boy sat and where he had chosen his table.
“What else were you learning in school, besides art?” Itachi asked as he too sat, turning his chair so he could see the rest of the room. He pulled out of handkerchief and laid it on the table. Itachi then placed his sew kit down, and began pulling out the needed instruments.
“Cookies!” Tomas had been asked a question, but cookies were distracting. He waited until he had carefully pushed Pooky across the table toward Itachi to reach for one, though. Then he happily took a big bite before making an effort to respond to the other boy’s words.
It required a lie, of course. But then the claim of still being in school was a lie too. However, the best lies also included a bit of truth, so he gave a bit of his real story away.
“Just art, mostly! But cos the government doesn’t like art much, sometimes we talk about... scary things. I don’t like the scary things.”
Tomas pushed a hand up to rest against the soft ribbon around his throat. And once again had managed to really upset himself with something that had started for someone else’s benefit.
Itachi carefully took the bear and poked the stuffing more inside, examining the tear to see how he would fix it. He kept an eye on Tomas. He hadn’t thought about the ribbon--with all the collars, he’d started thinking something around the neck was the norm. Tomas’ ribbon did not cover a collar. Did he wear it just because it was blue? Itachi couldn’t see someone Tomas’ age wearing something around their neck just because. Maybe the boy didn’t feel like he was being choked.
But he touched it like a reminder.
“Governments can be pretty scary,” Itachi spoke softly, checking his thread against the cloth belly of the bear, and then snipping off a length of it.
“They can be,” Tomas agreed, leaning over the table a little to see what Itachi was doing. He was very careful to keep cookie crumbs out of the way, because after all, he didn’t want poor Pooky to wind up with any inside him.
He nodded in approval at the match of the thread, then shifted to his knees in his chair, so he could have a better view without having to invade his new friend’s space.
“It’s really scary at home. It’s scary here too, but it’s a different kind of scary. Like, somebody as mean to Pooky because I left m alone, but I doubt they knew he was mine or anything. It’s just... random, instead of targeted.”
“It’s harder to be ready for random meanness,” Itachi agreed. He started gently drawing the edges of the wound tear together, turning the edges in just a fraction to make the repair smoother. It would leave a scar across the bear’s stomach, but, hopefully, not a noticeable one. Itachi worked slowly, because Tomas was watching. Maybe he would want to repair his bear himself next time.
“Were people mean to you back home because of your art?” Itachi asked, wondering how art could get you in trouble. Propaganda, maybe? Wouldn’t Tomas be young for that?
Tomas nodded solemnly.
“The scary people tried to get me.” They had gotten him, really. Had gotten him and made him one of them. But that was something he was keeping very close, for as long as he could.
“They hurt me. That’s why I was talking funny earlier, when I was scared.” He paused, and then shook his head, as if trying to take it back.
“B-but it’s okay! I have Pooky, and I ran away. And at school I get to study and paint and play ball with my friends and everything. It’s okay!”
Itachi watched Tomas, eying the ribbon around his neck. Itachi smiled a fraction, looking down at the bear. “Being in a new place where you don’t know anyone can be pretty scary too.”
Tomas paid careful attention to Itachi’s movements, watching how gently he handled the bear. That was, for Tomas, a very important thing. Of course, Pooky himself was important, but it was equally important that Itachi wasn’t laughing at his attachment to the bear, or being disrespectful o that.
He liked Itachi quite a bit, he decided.
“It is,” he said after a moment. “But you don’t seem scared, Itachi. And you’re not a grown-up either. Have you been here long?”
Itachi smiled ruefully. An adult? He thought he’d been an adult for a very long time. “I may not be done growing, but in my world, I’ve been an adult for a while. They usually measure when you’re an adult by your skills, and how well you can do certain things,” Itachi explained as he tucked the ragged edge of Pooky’s tear back down.
“I’ve been here...almost seven months.” That surprised Itachi. He hadn’t realized it had been so long. Had he changed in the time? Probably not much. Probably not in good ways. “I have a few friends that help me stay safe.” Izumo and Shisui, and his own reputation. Maybe some of the collaborators.
“Oh” Tomas figured by that measure, he’d be an adult too. Of course, he was probably old enough to be an adult by now, but he’d lost track of time a little. He wasn’t exactly sure, and no one referred to him as anything but a child. Or The Child, in their best fearful hushed tones.
He tilted his head, leaned in a little more, then drew in a few quick breaths , almost as if sniffing for something in the air.
“So you’re really good at something? And you have people here to help you too? That... that must be really nice. Could...”
He clamped his lips shut over the rest of the question, feeling awkward about it. He’d nearly asked if Itachi would help him, but that was assuming a lot. Besides, Itachi already was helping him. He looked down at his hands, shook his head. “What do you do at home, Itachi?”
“I...” Itachi considered softening the blow, more because Tomas was young than anything else. “I was a soldier, of a sort. I killed people more than I protected them,” Itachi admitted softly, eyes on the bear he was fixing instead of the child across from him. Tomas’ world sounded rough, but did it confront one with the same hard truths as early as Itachi’s did?
Itachi looked at Tomas. “Maybe you should meet my friend Izumo.” Itachi had seen Izumo with some of the younger Others before, and he could help Itachi keep an eye on Tomas and make sure the boy didn’t get targeted regularly. Unfortunately, Itachi thought that might happen.
Tomas blinked in surprise. He didn’t try to keep it from his face - he wasn’t actually very good at that - and turned his eyes back down to what Itachi was doing with the bear. It seemed so strange, to think of the patient young man fixing his toy killing someone. Of course, he himself both harmed and healed, but that was different, because which of those things he enjoyed more was not in question.
He chewed at his lip for a second, then nodded, reaching for his cocoa and wrapping both hands around the cup.
“Soldiers have to come from somewhere,” he said, after a moment. He pushed the name Izumo around in his brain some, but it wasn’t getting him anything. “Is your friend nice?”
“Better we made them out of mushrooms than children,” Itachi muttered as he tugged the last stitches tight. Now, he needed to make a knot that would hold. Itachi glanced at the boy and waffled on his age. Itachi had been mature for his age, as had his best friend, so he had never gotten very good at guessing children’s ages by how they acted.
“He and I fight a lot, but he is nice.” That didn’t sound like much of an assurance.
Tomas shrugged thin shoulders, leaving them hunched a little. He felt like he should tell Itachi the truth about himself, but he just couldn’t do it. He didn’t think it was air to know what Itachi had done at home when he wasn’t willing to tell himself. And surely if Itachi had been a soldier young, he would understand? But Tomas couldn’t count on that. He couldn’t keep himself safe if things went wrong.
So instead he simply nodded, again.
“I’d like to have lots and lots of friends. If I’m going to stay here for a while. And... you said you’d been here seven months? I thought they were supposed to send you home if you worked for them...” He frowned, surprised into looking back up to Itachi’s face.
“They never said how long it would take, did they?” Itachi grimaced a little. “And I...I died a few times. That costs money when they fix you, so it may take me longer to get home than most people.” Hopefully that wouldn’t scare Tomas too badly. Itachi should learn to guard what he said a little better. He could have called his deaths simply accidents.
“I don’t think you’ll have a problem making friends,” Itachi admitted as he carefully tied off the string. He reached for his scissors and snipped the threads off short.
“They can bring back the dead?” Tomas asked, for the moment completely distracted from his toy. He had heard stories about some of the shamans of the far south bringing back the dead, but they hadn’t been very nice stories. Fairly terrifying ones, actually. And when people had died on him while he was trying to heal them, it had been very gross.
He shook his head, trying to shake away the images.
“It kinda feels like they can do anything around here, and I think that makes it more scary. But you look okay now. Did you-” He paused, trying to think how to ask, but then just blurted it out. “Please tell me you died because you were fighting in those Game-things, right? No one just killed you, for no reason? Some of the people around here look like they might- they look at you like they might - just want to hurt you for no reason and...”
He trailed off, wrinkling his nose and touching his hand to the ribbon at his throat again.
“No...” Itachi shook his head quickly. “I’ve only died in Games, or when I started a fight. We’re not...you’re not supposed to fight with people outside of Games, Tomas. Some people won’t follow that rule, of course, but most people will. Also, there’s a man called Gin Charlie who’s responsible for making sure people don’t break that rule. He’s terrifying, but he’ll keep you safe,” Itachi assured the boy. He still felt bad for frightening Tomas. Things could be dangerous for Tomas. Itachi didn’t know how many people would target him because he was young, and it didn’t have to be overt violence they used.
“Here...” Itachi opened his scissors and cut a small line on the side of his wrist. He carefully flipped his hands through the proper signs, and a crow appeared in his hands. This was one of the smaller ones, beady eyed and curious.
“If you get into trouble and you need help, she can come get me--if you’re outside or near a window, she’ll be able to see you.” Itachi didn’t know if having Tomas carry around a crow of his would be a good idea. Itachi eyed the bird, who stared reproachfully back. She’d probably stand out too much. “It’s not that useful, but it could help.”
Tomas watched carefully, at first a little hesitant when he saw Itachi cutting himself. When the bird appeared, he felt very strange about it at first, as if he were looking at something he shouldn’t be. Using Talent so openly wasn’t at all acceptable, and this was obviously some form of Talent.
If nothing else, it confirmed what he’d thought he’d felt earlier. For half a second, he wondered if he could eat that power, but he pushed the thought away quickly.He didn’t even feel the hungry expression that passed over his face.
Then he was holding out his hand to the bird, smiling at it. “I can really keep... her?” He paused, leaned in a little more toward the bird. It was too big to fit in a pocket, but he bet it could ride on his shoulder. She could. “Does she have a name?”
Itachi didn’t know what to make of the look that passed over Tomas’ face. It unnerved him, but Itachi couldn’t quite place what the expression meant or reminded him of. Instead, he looked down at the bear and began putting his tools away.
“She has a crow name, for her family, but you may give her a name for you to call her,” Itachi offered. “She’s not really mine, but she and her family help me out from time to time.” Itachi stood the little bear up and smiled a bit. “I’m sure you’ll take good care of her, like you take good care of Pooky, and she’ll take care of you.”
Tomas stared at the bird for a moment, concentrating hard and trying to think what to call her. He didn’t know that much about names for birds, and he’d never had his own pet. He’d named some of the farm animals at his parents’ farm before he’d gone away, but this seemed different somehow.
Of course, she was only temporarily his anyway.
He reached out to gently brush fingers over her fur, even as his other hand reached out for Pooky, pulling him back onto his lap. For the moment, Itachi was forgotten. He addressed the crow instead, his eyes solemn.
“I’m going to call you Lady Arabella. And this is my friend Pooky. You two are going to need to get along.” He screwed up his lips for a second, then cast his eyes up to the young man across from him.
“Do you think I’d be able to get crayons here somewhere?”
Tomas’ focus on the bird and bear made Itachi smile, though he hid it behind his tea mug. Itachi curled his hands around his mug. His crow would be just fine with Tomas.
“There’s a device in the Commons where you can order things you want, like clothes and art supplies,” Itachi explained. “You should be able to get crayons from it, or Gin Charlie might have some, and you wouldn’t have to wait for them to arrive.”
“I should ask him. Or...” He leaned over toward Itachi, looking around for the sewing stuff. He hadn’t actually registered it being put away, since he’d been talking and distracted. “If you have blue thread, I might be able to do it that way.”
He didn’t say what ‘it’ was.”
Itachi did. He opened the kit and handed Tomas a scrap of blue thread and handed it to Tomas, wondering what the boy planned to do with a bit of thread.
Tomas frowned at the piece of thread, looked up at the crow, and then stretched the thread out on the table. He started scrunching it up, pushing here and there at it until the little piece of thread was a pool of color on the table, instead of a line. Then he pushed a little more, pinched here and there with his nails.
The resulting little puddle of thread didn’t really look much like a crow, but it did have a blob that could be a body, a couple of ends that might be feet, and a loop that could do for a beak. He grinned up at Itachi, as if proud of his trick, and then placed a hand down over the thread.
The bird in front of him turned the exact shade of blue as the thread, as soon as Tomas’s hand fell over it.
“Art,” he said softly.
Itachi jumped as the bird changed, eyes flickering to red. He didn’t catch and energy trails or chakra being used, but he’d probably looked too late. Itachi eyed the child sitting across from him, so proud of changing a bird’s color. Itachi could do it, yes, but this didn’t look like a genjutsu.
Itachi reached out and touched the bird’s feathers, as if expecting the color to come off on his fingers. It didn’t of course. The crow didn’t seem harmed by the color change. She didn’t even seem to care.
At least Tomas’ art didn’t involve exploding things.
“That’s quite a trick,” Itachi said slowly, wondering what else Tomas could do.
Tomas giggled, then unwound the thread, tied it around one of Pooky’s paws so he could keep it. He didn’t comment on the funny red eyes, though he did notice them. He could ask later, maybe, if he was more comfortable.
For now, he was content to reach out and pet the bird’s feathers, his touch very gentle, and then turn his eyes up to Itachi’s face.
“She won’t stay that way, not forever. It only stays forever if you do it really good. And then sometimes you can’t fix it, that’s what happened to my hair.” It was technically true. He didn’t mention that the same thing had happened to the rest of him, that was all.
“But don’t tell anyone, okay?” Tomas bit his lip, leaned in a little more, as if he wished he could crawl over the table and snuggle up to Itachi. “It’s no good for fighting or anything, so... I don’t think it’d help me for anyone to know.”
Itachi had been about to ask if Tomas’ hair might be magically colored, but that explained it. Itachi wondered if Tomas ever got tired of all his blue. “I won’t tell anyone,” Itachi promised. He wondered what else Tomas could do with art. Only changing something’s color seemed extremely limited. Why would someone cultivate or teach a gift like that?
Itachi leaned forward, automatically reaching out to tap Tomas on the forehead. Itachi pulled his hand back before it got there, embarassed. “It’s good thinking. She’ll blend in more with you if she’s blue.”
“Well, I figured it’d make it less obvious she wasn’t really mine too,” Tomas said, pursing his lips. He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, if she was mine and I was in trouble and she just flew away, it’d seem more like she was running away. Instead of like... going to get help, like if everyone knew she was yours.”
He hunched his shoulders, his eyes focused on the hand that had nearly touched him.
“I thought it might be good anyway,” he said, and then leaned in a little more himself. He had wanted to be touched, loved to be touched, and the fact that Itachi had taken his hand away hurt. But he’d just met the other boy, and he didn’t know the reasons why. He couldn’t expect everyone to be like Bee and let him cling, but he couldn’t quite keep the disappointment off his face.
“It was a very clever idea,” Itachi agreed. He reached forward again tapping his palm against Tomas’ forehead for a simple count of three. He didn’t question Tomas’ thought process--it seemed simple logic to Itachi. It just meant Tomas was used to thinking about threats and how to avoid making things look out of place.
Itachi pulled himself back to his side of the table and looked at his tea, feeling rather pleased, but not sure why.
Tomas sat back in his seat, but he was grinning widely and puffing his chest out like he might burst with pleasure. He pulled his cocoa toward himself and took a little sip, and then reached for a cookie.
He took one bite, held it out to Pooky as if the bear might partake, and then held it up for the crow.
“Can she eat anything, or does she have to be careful? I don’t know much about birds.”
“She can eat whatever she wants. Crows are scavengers, but she shouldn’t eat too many cookies or too much junk food.” Itachi did not count cookies as junk food. They were sweets and an excellent source of quick energy when there wasn’t time for anything else. Lady Arabella evidently count them as junk food either. She happily took the cookie and made crumbs everywhere.
“And she’s messy,” Itachi warned. “And she likes to tear things up.”
Tomas nodded, taking in the information as if it were desperately important. He reached for another cookie for himself, bouncing a little in his seat.
“I’ll be sure to take good care of her, Itachi! Thank you.”
He bounced again, his eyes shining with excitement. “Is there anything I can do for you? I could...” He paused, trying to think of something he could offer that wouldn’t break his cover in any way. There were things he’d be tempted to offer if Itachi were older, but.... no.
He beamed. “I could paint your room for you or something! Or make you something!”
Itachi tried to think of something Tomas could do for him. He didn’t want to ask Tomas for something that would seem useless.
“How about...” Itachi considered. “Could you paint something happy on the ceiling of my room?” Itachi asked. “My roommate has a lot of nightmares. If he had something happy to look at, maybe he could have happier dreams,” Itachi suggested. He had no idea if that would even work, but it should be fun.
Tomas blinked, thinking about it, and then gave a little bob of his head. He gave a wide smile. “That would be fun! And I wouldn’t mind at all. I’ll have to get some paint first, but you said Gin Charlie could probably do that, right? I’ll be sure to ask him soon.”
He felt so much better thinking he could do something for Itachi in return.
“What’s your roommate like? Is he nice?”
“You don’t have to hurry. I wouldn’t want to rush art.” Itachi felt very certain some cranky artists had demanded that art could not be rushed. Itachi smiled. “Just do your best.”
Itachi tapped the rim of his tea cup and grimaced. His roommate? What would Shisui think of Tomas? He had better not be jealous. Itachi didn’t think Shisui had ever been jealous of Sasuke, but Sasuke had been family, and Shisui was only fifteen here.
“He’s my cousin.” How did Itachi describe Shisui anyway?He could be nice, but he could also be cruel. Heartless and psychotic in corners that could get you trapped and ripped apart. But he was also the kindest person Itachi had ever known. The one who had loved him if not most, then the most overtly in his life beyond Sasuke. Sasuke didn’t count anymore, since he hated Itachi rabidly and rightly.
How did you describe something like that.
“He’s okay.” Itachi swirled his tea and rubbed at his heated cheek.
Tomas mulled that reaction over for a moment. He wasn’t sure what Itachi’s expression meant, but it seemed funny to boil a description of a family member down to ‘he’s okay’. He was tempted to ask more questions, but he didn’t want to run his new friend off with them when they’d just met.
So he just nodded and went back to drinking his cocoa, the liquid starting to get cool. He nibbled at his lip a little, not sure what else to say, and then turned to take a look around the room.
There were certainly a lot of different types of people in this world, he’d noticed.
“I guess I’ll get to meet lots of interesting people around here. Maybe I can meet your cousin someday soon too.”
Itachi nodded. “I’m sure it would be good for him.” Maybe some of Tomas’ cheerfulness would rub off on Shisui for a while. Or maybe he could settle the dynamic between them somehow.. Or upset it.
Itachi took the last sip of his tea and began gathering up his sewing tools. “Just be careful. Some people are nice. Some are not so much.”
Tomas flicked his eyes back to Itachi at the movements, nodding and putting on a smile. It didn't feel quite real. He was quite lousy at faking expressions, and he felt oddly sad at the moment. He was less scared: Itachi's crow helped a lot with that. But there was a certain melancholy feeling settling in, a loneliness of understanding that even in a world like this, there were people with friends and families.
He didn't want to feel jealous of Itachi, but that didn't stop him from feeling it.
Tomas shook the thought away, waited for Itachi to finish what he was doing, and then laid a hand on his arm.
"I'll be careful. Thank you."
“Good.” Itachi stood up and picking up his tea mug. “And thank you. I think I needed this.” Itachi felt worlds better about himself and life in generally, oddly. He didn’t know why, but he just felt...warmer. Happy without a cruel edge hidden away to cut himself if he dug too far into it.
“And, Tomas....you don’t have to smile for me unless you want to.” Itachi nodded to the blue crow and gave the boy one last smile of his own before heading off to give the drone his dirty cup.
Tomas sat very still, blinking after him, not sure what to say to that. He didn’t have to say anything - Itachi was already walking away - but he wished he could come up with some argument about it, or perhaps an expression of gratitude for the sentiment.
He couldn’t decide which he wanted more, and Itachi was gone before he puzzled it out.
Sighing, Tomas settled back into his seat, furnished Lady Arabella another cookie, hugged Pooky to his chest, and sat watching the room. He didn’t really know where he was going next, but he felt a little safer now, at least. He had friends to watch his back.