Hey

look who has reTORNED

Backwoods

12: ARMS and Also Siblings

Torner is woken by only the most ungraceful of means: someone shaking his shoulder and a low-key scrunched up all annoyed face. Purple hair sort of tickles his cheek and he tries not to think about that, but it really does tickle, so it's hard not to.

"C'mon," a low tone mutters, "get up already... it took me half an hour to find your room and this is how you repay me. And I came all this way... urhhhh, I should've been smart about it and waited till you contacted me yourself, but knowing you..." This suspicious pause. "Is that toilet paper on your arm Torner."

"WHBHBHH NO IT'S NOT." Starting straight up out of his—his position on the floor—someone didn't make it to his bed last night—Torner hastily wipes said toilet paper off of his arm. It's still a little sticky, though most of the water's evaporated. "What're... You're already..." He just woke and he's out of breath. Somehow Torner still finds this surprising.

Leon, his sharp brows raised, continues. "Well, yeah. Like I literally just said, as you started waking up and all"—crossing his arms over his chest all pompous-like—"it took me what, forty solid minutes to find your room because I couldn't find anyone who could just tell me." He stops to flip his long purple hair out of his face. Because that's important, obviously. "I'm lucky you didn't lock your door."

Ooooooh. He forgot to lock his—Well then, what else did he forget to do. Glancing at the television, Torner finds that he did at some point get his NS into his room from Nate's—though not how this occurred—but, turning into the main area of the chamber, he finds that he did not remember to put his clothes in—wait no he's never put his dirty clothes in a basket, what does he think he is?

"Nice boxers?" Leon's attempt at conversation startles the thirteen-year-old until he casually checks himself out and notes that he is in his boxers, as well as a gigantic tee-shirt that kinda makes him look like he's not wearing the boxers, or anything, underneath.

The boxers have little pink dinosaurs on them. They might maybe like only possibly be Torner's favorite pair of boxers.
He, uh, he doesn't wanna talk about it.

From somewhere in his skull he swears he hears a certain vivosaur chortle.

Pulling his giant shirt over his boxers a little more, Torner then puffs out his chest and folds his arms over it, mirroring a certain purple-haired someone. "Ssssso whatcha doin' here anyways?"

"You—" Leo glances away to proffer a short laugh. "Dude, you said you wanted to play, uh..." Suddenly bashful. "Video games! You said you... freakin'... you're making me really awkward here, c'mon, man..."

"Oh, uh." In some attempt at securing his pride, Torner nods in that frantic way some adults do. Like—Like Stryker. Stryker nods that way sometimes. "Right, I knew that. I was... just testing you!"

Leo closes his eyes. Lets out a breath. Opens them again. "What are you even talking about." Then he turns and faces the television..

When did he get the television?

Maybe Stryker dropped it off for him. Oh, maybe. Sounds improbable, but he didn't have a television before, and televisions don't have legs, as far as Torner can tell...

As calm and collected as Torner tries to be, all it takes is him tripping over a controller to lose all of it. His face burns straight bright red as his hair, which flops all over his head in what simply has to be an unflattering style. And his shirt goes flying around his chest, ungh.

It takes longer than it should for him to get settled, moving his singular couch up by the television, plugging in his NS the way Leroy taught him. But eventually he does, and with his remaining morsel of dignity he situates himself beside a much taller and cooler Leon. Secretly Torner hopes he can be like Leon when he gets older but he has a feeling he won't. He'll probably end up like Hanzo, or something, if anyone.
Leon's cool when he's not edgy.
Like. Heck.

Hanzo's cool though. Eh, sometimes. Despite himself Torner keeps imagining how his brother'll beat him in this game as he starts loading up that new one he got awhile ago, been meaning to play but got too busy playing the racing game to play it.
He gets the feeling there's something wrong with the fact that he feels he's too busy playing one video game to play another, kind of like he needs better priorities in his life. But he's about to shrug it off when, of course, a certain white-and-red vivosaur flops onto his lap.

You do need better priorities.

Lysandre's like the mom he never had.
She's better than any other mom experience ever before in his life, and it makes him hate her.
Who needs responsibilities. Not Torner, that's who.

Handing Leon a controller, Torner starts up the system. Then he pauses. "Wait, this one has really cool online functions... Uhhhh what's the Wi-Fi?"

Leon silently, methodically searches through the console's settings, mindlessly clicking on a service, typing in the password, then letting Torner take over to return to the game. This crawling aspect deep in his soul wants to ask how Leon knew the password, but the rest of him's convincing that one part of him that he probably shouldn't ask.
He wonders if the bandwidth crashes a lot around here.

Okay finally they get to the character selection screen. Leon scrolls around, making faces at all the options like he's better than them, eventually settling with the one Torner's just started calling Snaker. Because—Because he looks like a snake. Softly, in his quieter tone, the one that feels like something special, Leon reads, "Kid Cobra..." Pauses. "What kind of a name..."

"They all have weird names." Torner's explanation is all they have, so they go with it. They haven't even started playing yet, but Torner already feels his palms sweating because he doesn't play nearly enough of this game and he—he keeps seeing himself losing and he hates it. Scrolling frantically through characters, he eventually releases a sharp breath and selects the cool mummy dude.

Leon barks out a laugh. "Master Mummy."

"He's the best of the best, duh." Well, duh, uh.

Kind of feels like he should've chosen the ninja guy because it makes him think of Hanzo, and maybe if he chooses the character Hanzo would choose he'll be able to muster his older brother's strange, intense ability to win at everything. Ungghhhh.

So the two join an online lobby. Torner tries to scan all the usernames of the people playing against them like it might reveal how much of a scrub they are, and because Leon can detect how stupidly hard his friend's concentrating, he chooses to stay respectfully silent.

Late morning light trickles in through a window, which makes it annoyingly harder to focus on the screen, which makes Torner want to kill the windows. Except he can't, because windows, and now he's locked in on an online battle so closing the blinds is no longer an option. Gosh his palms are sweaty, he is shaking, this is, this is sad.

Running a nervous hand through his clumped hair, Torner prepares himself for what he tells himself is gonna be the best. Leon readies his controller, then asks, "Wait how do we control the guys?" and understands from the twist in Torner's expression that the boy has forgotten. So, y'know, basically screwed but it's fine.

"So this is a two-v-two, right? Which means—"

"Yeah don't hold me up bro."

Leon snorts. "You're telling me."

And it turns out Leon's right because he gets first blood or—uh—first hit or... or whatever. All the characters have crazy stretchy arms that whoom across the still bigger stages, so Leon just times his puncher punch arm right and it punches the lights out of one of the enemies and—

Torner panics. "H-How'd you—"

"A and B buttons let you punch your arms."

He feels his heart gnawing slowly out of his chest.

The character Leon's against is that one girl with the giant hair, and—oh what fate—Torner's mummy boy is facing the ninja dude.

Somehow he feels like this is fate, and that just makes everything that much worse. From her comfortable position on his lap, Lysandre chuckles, like his demise is her favorite cake ever made and she is just eating it up. It makes—It makes Torner really mad.

He starts rapidly swinging his puncher punch arms at the stupid ninja but the ninja's a freaking fast ninja and he does this whoosh thing where he dodges all of Torner's attacks because the stupid ugly purple giant mummy is slower than his freaking grandma.

Eventually the ninja builds up this strategy that works because of Torner's mummy not Torner it's all the mummy's fault.So—So because the mummy is so stupid and incompetent, the ninja guy ends up, like, phasing through the game by using his dumb ninja smoke bombs and, and beating him up. But it's not Torner's fault cuz it's freaking—dumb mummy is a horrible little—

While Torner's busy hating on the poor mummy, Leon casually sweeps in and destroys the other two guys on his own.

"I—Hey! That is, that is not cool." Sputtering a little over the edges of his tone, trying to—to act cool like Leon and not whine also sometimes like Leon. Trying his best but his best isn't very much.

"My saving our butts isn't cool."

Torner feels his pride bubbling in his throat. "Yes."

A snort. "You're just jealous, bud." Rolls his eyes. "Lemme win at something for once." And—despite Torner's attitude, and despite the fact that they're communicating through a fighting video game—there's a warmth in the air.

But of course Torner has to ruin it. "Yeah well my brother will beat you I bet, the next time he shows up and plays this game! Because he's immediately good at any game he ever touches."

Quiet again. Torner suddenly gets this feeling he said the wrong—

"Hey, your brother's... Hanzo, right? Think he's mentioned you once or twice."

"Whhh? Oh, uh... Yeah, that's him..."

There's a... slow, small smile, hesitant but ready, on Leon's lips. Torner has completely lost focus on the game set in front of them. "Reminds me of my sis. Mei Lan?" Oh shoot his sister's her? Oh... shoot. He—He'd forgotten. "She's a jerk though. But she's... stupidly good at stuff too, like Hanzo is. I just..." Presses his lips together tightly. "Don't hate on me for saying this, but... when I see people like him—and her too—I just... wanna see them crash and burn.

He's not focused on the game either. Head tilted, eyes screwed shut. "Is that stupid? Maybe that's stupid. I just, I hate it. I hate seeing people who're so... strong, like—it's like they're flawless, above us, or something. But they're just people. It... I dunno"—sigh—"it's annoying, is all."

There's this part of Torner that's weirdly touched his low-key aspiration told him all these things, but then there's the Torner part of Torner that goes, "Why're you telling me?"

And Leon laughs again. Softer. "I dunno. You're easy to talk to. You remind me of, like, a younger me."

Torner doesn't want to show how giddy this makes him feel, so instead of responding, he glares angrily at the online battle going on the television screen: currently this one character—a girl in a giant... machine suit... thing—is using a fun, thoughtless strategy where she grabs his mummy with her machine suit arms and throws him against the ground repeatedly. It's depressing to watch, so Torner doesn't.

Instead he half-glances at Leon and mutters "you're cool" in that quiet way people mutter things when they want but don't want the recipient to hear.

Of course Leon hears. He's half a couch cushion away. "Aww." Shakes his head slowly. "Nice of you."

"Not nice of me. Just truth."

And Leon evidently doesn't know what to say to that, and then Torner doesn't either, so they stare and watch as Torner's mummy guy gets utterly destroyed for a round before he goes to the character changer screen and switches to the ninja guy.

Loses the next round too.

Torner gets the sucky feeling in his chest that he is a natural disaster when it comes to this game. Should be expected, since he's maybe played it twice before and doesn't even remember which characters don't freaking completely suck, but Torner still hates himself a little for it. Does any of this make sense? No, of course not; this is Torner's way of thinking after all. But to him he feels an utterly unrighteous surge at the prospect of loserdom at a stupid video game.

Yeah your priorities are terrible, Lysandre reminds him, like it might cause him to rethink them.

Pouting in that childish way he pretends isn't happening at all, Torner gets up and stretches. "Mmhhh, well that was a good warm-up round. I better start playing serious." And he hears Leon snickering and he feels Leon trying to pretend he's not, and it spares his pride a smidge, but it's just so happened to push every ounce of Torner's dignity off a cliff.

He switches to his tracker and in a spurt of passive-aggressiveness contacts someone on it. The ringer, ringer—ha. "Helloooo? Are you busssyyyy?" he immediately asks.

A blessedly warm, ditzy, happy voice pervades. "Nah, just woke up but nah. Sup, Torner?"

"I am playing video games an—"

"YOU NEED SAY NO MORE." Before even finishing his sentence, a freckled, pink-haired teen in his rumpled pajamas surges through the unlocked, gaping door to Torner's room.

Leon screws his lip and the atmosphere of the chamber flips. "You."

Registering the shady figure slouching beside the kid-teenager, this awkward little grin pops onto Nate's rapidly-paling cheeks. His freckles stick out. "And you too! Wow, what a coincidence, huh? Guess Torner had to go and nab himself another friend. Cool, coooool..." He struggles to enunciate as his tone kind of curls into itself, forcing buoyancy where words sink.

Being himself, Torner hardly notices the added thunderclouds encircling the chamber. He jumps in front of his television, throws Nate a controller—the latter almost catching it and then watching it hit the ground in a sort of horrified awe-stricken state—before shuffling back onto his couch. Nate quickly joins him, smushing the thirteen-year-old between his taller, older friends.

His two aspirations.
Oh boy.

"Soooo... dude, like, how much did that controller even cost?"

Torner struggles to refocus on the game, but it's hard because watching himself fail repeatedly at a video game is pretty much a personal pit of pure evil. "Dunno. My aunt and uncle bought 'em all when I got my NS."

"Oh." Nate doesn't sound like he can believe the boy. "Dango dang, duder."

It turns out he is as bad if not worse than Torner at ARMS, so it works out because they switch to local play and totally team up on Leon a bunch of times. Only Leon keeps winning anyways and it freaking sucks but—but, well, they're doing their best.

As the boys continue, the tension melts, and before long Leon flips his hair out of his face to turn and face Nate, venerable violet meeting bright blue. "So, dude. You still getting yelled at by Stryker or what?"

"Yeaaaah. It suuucks." As Nate lets a grimace fly through his usually so positive features, the other teen nods sympathetically. "I just, man, don't see the point in screwing around with practice. Can't get in the mindset. Plus Stryker's always watching over you, and it like—"

"I—Oh my gosh, I'm the exact same way! I can't deal with it, constantly making me feel like I gotta prove myself or something. Unghh."

The longer they chat, the more gutsy, powerful their punches grow in-game. Nate begins to overcome his short redheaded friend as a duel of sorts between Nate's popstar girl and Leon's snaker dude takes over the match.

"Exaaaactly. I hate it, so I just don't deal."

"Smart, smart..." murmurs Leon. Through the fierce creases of anger in his stony, foundation-lined features, he's... humming, just softly. "But the thing is, I never could get through the Warden Exam and, like, you did... so I just..."

"Maaan, that's probably what's screwin' you left and right up in here!" Nate swings—Leon dodges, counterattacks. Manages a hit on popstar girl. Torner watches all of this unfold, strangely enraptured by the parries and the strikes and the chemistry of the battle. "How you feel like you gotta force yourself. Doesn't work like that."

A grunt. Leon's character sails through the air, smacking the ground in a painfully loud splat, a rough expression splitting across his player's face. "I agree to disagree, dude. It's more than not trying at all. Gotta put something into it, y'know? Can't let my faulty instinct take over."

"Hmmmm... dunnooooo..." But he doesn't argue it either, not even after the match ends and Torner wins because nobody paid any attention to him.

Winning that first round is far more enjoyable for him than it probably should be.

"So, um... This is where you live?"

Hanzo pauses momentarily as the girl beside him speaks, her voice a... bell ringing in his otherwise soundless home. What greets them amounts to—at first glimpse—little more than a hollow in a mountain; however, due to clever usage of technological functioning and arrangements of furniture, the niche comes off as inviting more than isolated, cold.

Homey. A homey little cave.

As he carefully combs his way through the chamber, checking to make sure he hasn't left anything stupid out of place, he fits his hands beneath his mask and pulls it over his head, allowing his gloves and then his clothes to follow, sliding into a snug mass on the ground. His tail sticks out like a scrawny Torner in a gaggle of wardens now that it's no longer hidden beneath layers of fabric. Feels... sore.

Regarding his guest in the corner of his mind, he gently kicks his stuff into a wedge of the chamber. Turns toward her—nervous, despite how... similar they are.

Both dinaurian. Hah.

He knows how it is, knows why his body is so uncomfortable dressing like any other human, acting like he looks just like any other one of them, yet he still hides it.

Ah...

Duna's not even looking his way. Her calm, magenta gaze—holding back an onslaught of mixed impressions from so many new and different things—steers herself, an anchor, around his chamber, before finally glancing back toward the entrance. A feeble screen streaks across the hollow before it spills down a spiral of stairs into his home, and it sort of works to protect from wind, but it's not always much of a success.

She... squints. "It feels lonely here."

Oh. She's... fast, uh. Hanzo needs a second to think up something to say in response. "Yeah, it... is. I'm mostly the only person who stays here, so... yeah." Glances in... shame at his tail, his scales, the not-quite-skin-color pink dancing along his fingers, his cheeks, his legs. An amber-red sneaks around his knees and forearms and embosses him in bright green-laced patterns, filling out his chest, a circle around his neck, stripes down his legs.

He stares at it all like it's still so new.

"I just... nobody else really knows what I am, so I... I mean, I need time on my own to..." It's... hard, wording an answer to his feelings.

Since he's never had to explain himself before.

Pressing her lips together, Duna regards him once again. "How... strange. I ah, did not exist long enough in the past to learn whether or not fellow... humans displayed any sort of animosity toward dinaurians. I... wonder how... Dino and—Raptin and the others did..."

"Oh that's not... I just..." He totally bit his lip. Feels it throbbing. Ugh. "I just don't—because, like—dinaurians sort of fell into the genes of people and all and, like... I dunno, hardly anybody is one and I'm..."

A knowing smile graces her lips. "Oh. You are self-consc—"

"Ye-Yeaaah. That." Weak grin. It feels weird knowing she can see him smile. That he's not... covering it up with anything.

His parents knew. But his parents were also incompetent, so perhaps they couldn't tell fantasies from the reality of their son's tail.

Then moving in with the aunt and uncle. Then constantly coating himself in extra layers. Then running away with Sasuke.

Now here. This dinaurian girl, her blue scales shimmering with an opulence not unlike the sky at night, decked with stars, waits before him. For him.

Her fingers tightening together in front of her, Duna proffers another little grin. "Well your scales, they... are a flattering color scheme, I think. Heh—That is a... compliment. For dinaurians and..." head lowering, "all. He-Heheh. I used to... say that to Raptin, because it made him blush, and it was funny, seeing him get so embarrassed about...

In that little ball in front of her, Duna's hands squeeze tighter. "Never... mind." It's a like a wall she's shoving back with sheer force of will alone, her eyes trembling, her figure drooping, her head lowering, yet still it stays back, yet still she stands strong. Lets out a small breath.

"You do not have to continue living like this if you do not wish to, Hanzo. There are... always things you could do, like—"

"Dun—"

"Telling your brother. He seems like... he would still care about you, because I think he really does like you. Or... perhaps a trusted friend or relative. Or—"

"Duna I—I just..." Hanzo can't look at her. "It makes me feel really uncomfortable, I'm... sorry."

She gasps, shakes her head a little harshly. "O-Oh! I understand! My apologies."

"No it's... fine. I mean, you're right, keeping secrets isn't all that healthy since it could always get spoiled eventually, but I just, but it... I just feel so uncomfortable... it's easier to keep myself covered. Act like... I don't know, my family doesn't know, so I can just pretend that I'm..."

Another shy smile from Duna. "But they are a part of you, Hanzo."

"Yeah..."

It sort of annoys him, how perceptive she is.

Most people just aren't that way, and yet she is, and of course she's dinaurian, of course she just so has to recognize the little chips in him that everyone else seems to skim over, the things he likes so very much to hide, he—unhghh. It's so touching he kind of hates it.

Without any sort of warning, his eyes as far away from her as they could get, he mutters, "You can, uh, stay here too, if you want." Closes his eyes like he's already regretting it. "It's warm. Nice. Keeps out the... rain. Gets good signal. If you're into video games, or... anything."

And then her laugh, and again that... sensation, the bell, her voice filling the atmosphere as he alone never could. His home... warmer than he ever thought it could have been.

"Hanzo... I like you." And again the laugh... a wistful smile filling her features.

And yet—despite how short their time spent together has been, despite how stupid he feels, despite how impossible this should be—a little... kindling, a tiny fire of... affection catches deep in his chest.

Still unable to look at her. His tongue swipes across his lip. "Yeah, uh. You're pretty cool yourself."

And once more her laugh swoons within the chamber. Her soft... tiny... cute little laugh.

Hanzo is decidedly smitten.