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 Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:03 am
Alba was full of surprises today: he'd managed to find his way through the building without getting lost not once, but twice! As the door to his shared room came into view, he was grateful for the small victory.
The grunt paused to listen at the door for a few seconds. He frowned at the silence that met him, and eventually knocked lightly as he dug into his pocket for his key card. "Inigo? Are you in?" Alba did all of this quietly enough to hopefully not wake the boy if he was sleeping, but loud enough so that he wouldn't startle the kid by entering unannounced. Ah ha! The key card. Swiping the card with only the slightest bending at the wrist, Alba carefully pushed the door open so he could peek around it. He sighed sadly and briefly shut his eyes from what he found, knowing exactly what it meant. The kid didn't need this. Not a loss like this. Nobody ever needed that.
A moment later, the door was shut, the card was tossed on top of the dresser, a desk lamp turned on, and Alba silently sat down on the floor with his back to his bed. If the kid wanted to talk, Alba was there. If he didn't, that was fine, too. If he wanted to tell Alba to get out, he was free to do so. In your own time, Kid.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 2:50 pm
((This solo is pretty much a lead-in to this rp, with the contents happening possibly a half hour to an hour before Alba walks in.))
Even though Alba's knock was audible enough, Inigo didn't hear it at all. The only thing he could hear were Aila's last words with Izaya before she passed just looping through his head over and over. He couldn't even process anything else, and the fact he'd managed to get back to his room in one piece without collapsing into a pitiful heap in a random hallway was almost a miracle.
Leilani heard her friend's roommate knock, and when he entered she stared at him with soulful, sad gold eyes - the fact that her back was completely to him was entirely irrelevant. "Niuuu," she crooned to him, her tone mournful. Even before Inigo was promoted he'd known Alba, and Leilani liked him - but then again, the large, friendly Meganium liked just about everyone. Inigo did too, but not as much as Leilani - and since he liked Alba, it was good the pair got to be roommates. She raised her head, noting but for the time being ignoring when Inigo immediately tensed and clung to her harder, his brown knuckles paling from the strength of his grip. She wasn't going anywhere, so he didn't need to worry about that - not that he realized that at the moment - and instead she uncurled her neck from its protective position around his shoulders and stretched it out to carefully grab Alba's arm in her mouth. "Nnphhoo," she insisted, gently tugging him towards Inigo. Alba could use words and arms to fix things, while she could only offer her presence and the closest thing to a hug she could manage, but she knew it wasn't enough.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:51 pm
"Leilani..." Alba didn't resist against the Pokemon trying to pull him over at first, but stopped short of fully joining the two. His face was shadowed by the lamp light being behind him, but it wasn't the open book of expressions he typically had.
As a police officer, how many times had he been there to tell other people that a friend or loved one had passed? I'm sorry, ma'am, there's been an accident. I'm sorry, sir, can you identify this person? It wasn't always him saying the rehearsed lines, but he'd been there to see it. Mothers screaming and grown men sobbing, and none of them ever reacted exactly the same. Similar, but never the same. He once heard that he hadn't reacted exactly like anyone else either, when it was his turn to hear such news. All he remembered from that time was a blur.
As Officer Taylor Ross, he was trained on how to inform strangers of loss. But for a kid he knew, who he shared living space with, Grunt Alba Ross had no clue where to start.
He pet Leilani on the back of her head-- I'll try. I'm not going anywhere.-- and knelt close to her trainer. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said quietly, gently, his head bowed but still watching the boy. "I heard what happened."
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:16 pm
The Meganium cooed at Alba as he patted her, the thankful noise emanating from the back of her throat, and she stayed with her head raised so the pair could interact. It would be better for Inigo to talk with somebody who could talk back.
Inigo didn't see Alba approach nor did he see the older man kneel nearby. He didn't notice his roommate until the man spoke, and the grunt instinctively tensed further, shoulders trembling more. He just... He didn't know anything anymore - what was going on, how it happened, what to even do - everything was just a dazed blur that made him light-headed and sick. "No.. No puedo creer," he choked out in a small voice, his normally mild accent much more prominent for the time being. "No puedo creer que ella murió..."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:42 pm
Alba didn't know a thing about other languages. Whatever he may have learned in school had long since gone out the window from lack of use. He didn't need a translation to get the idea of what Inigo was saying, but he couldn't be sure of how exactly to respond to it. Not vocally, that is. Alba twisted around so that he was now sitting to Inigo's right, and tentatively wrapped his left arm around the boy so he could gently grip both shoulders. "C'mon, Kid. Help me out here. What can I do?"
If the kid wasn't careful, he was going to end up hurting Leilani with that grip around her, if he hadn't already. Alba respected that the Meganium wasn't likely to let something like that bother her, but still. The kid obviously felt bad enough already.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:07 pm
Fortunately for everyone involved, the large Meganium wasn't at all bothered by Inigo's tight grip - physically, at least. It hurt emotionally because she understood why he was acting like this in the first place. One of Leilani's favorite cute girls, the small one with pink eyes, was gone - just like the woman in the picture Inigo kept hidden away and took out every once in a while. He always looked sad whenever he did that, but never this sad, and Leilani didn't know what to do to help.
The younger grunt continued trembling and clinging to his Meganium's neck, though his grip loosened considerably and his hands slipped a few inches down the grass-type's neck. "N..no sé... No puedo..." The situation, the feelings were so familiar. He didn't know when it happened - or how - but he'd slipped back to so many years ago. All he knew was that his mamá wasn't there and people were talking to him in a language he didn't know, trying to tell him things he didn't understand. She was gone, gone somewhere he didn't know, and he kept expecting her to walk over to take him home - but she never came back. He never saw her again, and didn't even kn--
"Niuuu." A firm but gentle headbutt connected with his shoulder, which caused Inigo's head to jerk up a bit in surprise, and he found himself staring into her sad gold eyes.
"Qué--"
"Niuum." A gentle n** to his shoulder. Stop that.
He stared at her for a few moments, a bewildered expression on his face as tears continued to slowly roll down his cheeks. What was she.. she.... oh. Oh. He reached a hand up to press over one eye, and after a moment his other hand slipped off the Meganium to cover his other eye. A pained grimace marred his face as the shoulders his roommate held started to tremble again. "I don't... Alba.." His accent disappeared along with the foreign words, but unfortunately all of his grief remained. "What do I.. I don't... know..."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:26 pm
Alba bit his bottom lip. "I know." He gave Inigo's shoulders a light squeeze, "I know," and wrapped both arms around the boy. His own eyes were starting to sting, but he quickly blinked it away. "I wish I could say it will all get better tomorrow, but it doesn't. It gets easier to bare, sure, and maybe someday you'll be able to let her go, but the feelings... they never really do go away."
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:52 pm
As soon as Alba hugged him, Inigo instinctively turned to him and returned the gesture, hands gripping the older man's shirt as his tear-stained face contorted in pure anguish. A couple minutes passed before he was able to speak again. "I know," he said with a shuddering breath, feeling a familiar and comforting weight drop into his lap as Leilani's gold eyes peered up at him sadly from her head's typical resting place. The Meganium had laid down instead, but was at least reminding the teenager of her presence. "I know," Inigo repeated, his voice hoarse and shoulders trembling. He had shed so many tears, he wasn't sure if he even had any left anymore. The acute agony had slowly ebbed away, leaving him with an intense sadness and a feeling of exhaustion. "I know they don't go away..." This wasn't, after all, the first time he had experienced a loss - but it was the first time he'd immediately realized it and begun mourning at the same time.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:53 am
The kid had been through something like this before, he realized. Alba knew it shouldn't be a surprise--just about everyone in this place seemed to have some sort of past trouble--but Inigo was always so happy. "I won't ask, but if you ever want to talk about it, or rant or rave or whatever else, I'm right here, and you can find me pretty easily the rest of the time." They did, after all, share living quarters.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:43 am
"Mi mamá," Inigo informed him readily. When Alba had said 'I won't ask' the younger grunt immediately assumed he meant about his other loss, and the teen's habit of being open about questions was obvious. With a slow, wavering sigh Inigo pulled away from Alba, rubbing at his eyes with a depressed frown. He just.. couldn't cry anymore. There were no more tears left - for now, anyway - and it just left him feeling completely and utterly drained. "Cuando -- when I was a kid," he explained after a moment, his hands dropping to stroke Leilani's head. She cooed softly and stared up at him with her soulful gold eyes.
Quickly clinging to the metaphorical life preserver he'd been given - talking about one sad thing instead of another, but at least he'd had time to accept the first - he twisted around to pull out a drawer from the dresser near his bed. After a bit of rummaging - and sniffling - Inigo pulled an old picture frame from the drawer and shut it. He looked down at it for a few moments, his drawn face relaxing as his fingers gently brushed the corners of it. "Here," he said finally, passing his roommate the picture. In it was a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, with long, thick black hair framing her face and curling back behind her shoulders, and the smile on her face reflected the one in her almond-shaped green eyes. In her lap she held a young boy, probably four or so, with similar features. Alba would probably find the child looked awfully familiar.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:58 pm
Alba watched curiously as Inigo retrieved the picture and eventually passed it over. For a moment, he simply studied the photograph, making sure to handle it with care. At last, he said without looking up, "Your mother was a lovely woman."
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:06 pm
Leilani twisted her neck to turn and look at the picture with Alba while Inigo released a slow sigh. "Yeah," he agreed, though his brow was furrowed and a frown present on his face. "Sometimes I can't remember her.. I was five when she died," the grunt explained, green eyes sliding to the photograph again. He was glad Alba was being so careful with it - he didn't know what he'd do if something happened to it, so he always kept it safe in the drawer. "I didn't know at the time," he reached up to run his fingers through his hair, "'cuz everyone was speaking English and I couldn't understand a word of it. It was.. I remember it was really stressful." He didn't understand any of it, he remembered, not where his mother was or why she wasn't there, nor why he was suddenly brought to a home with lots of other children.. Or why another family brought him home. He didn't know or understand for a few years just what exactly happened.
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:21 pm
Alba hummed and nodded slightly. "I bet it was." He fell quiet again for a few seconds, as if debating if he really should say what he said next. "Y'know... I was about the same age when my mother died. Maybe a little older. She'd been sick for a while, but..." he slowly shook his head, "no one ever really seems to know how to explain that sort of thing to kids. I kept thinking she'd get better and come home. Then one day... it just wasn't an option anymore." He held the photo out to offer it back to Inigo.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 4:35 pm
Inigo's brows rose as Alba spoke, and he took the picture back wordlessly. He studied it for a few moments in silence, absently running his fingers over the glass once. A few smudges were left in their wake, but that was alright. He'd clean it later anyway. "I'm sorry about your mom," he said after a few moments, lifting his face so he could look at Alba. His eyes were vaguely red and puffy, with a few dried tears staining his face and a general expression of bewilderment. "Yeah, s'tough," he agreed, turning to look down at the picture again. A frown slowly formed on his face as he tried to remember. "I just remember she never came to pick me up from nursery school one day. Eventually they took me to the hospital and nobody spoke Spanish, so I didn't know what was going on. Kept wondering where she was and why she hadn't come to get me.." The frown deepened, looking more thoughtful. "Funny thing was, she was fine just two days before." Another pause. "Secondary drowning," he elaborated, his frown disappearing but leaving a faraway look in its place. "I didn't know until a few years later. I had to look it up myself because mom and dad didn't want to answer any questions about it anymore."
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BlackFireKitsune Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:20 pm
Secondary drowning? Alba couldn't recall ever hearing of that. You either drowned or you didn't. Then again, there weren't exactly many cases of drowning at all in land-locked Saffron City. "Wow..." What else was there really to say?
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