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Shaxx's impassivity hides his mild amusement at this game. He knows Daigo well enough to understand what's going on, even if he doesn't quite understand why. But it's how Daigo is, and it makes Daigo happy. He holds out a hand toward the sparrow as if to say, All yours.

"It's not too different from one of your motorcycles, I believe. Control your acceleration and pitch with the pedals. Yaw and roll with the handlebars." He thinks for a moment. "Oh. And there aren't any brakes."

Not too different from one of your motorcycles, says someone who doesn't understand traction. Daigo scoffs to himself with amusement, ducking around this machine to take a look at its assembly. He'd love to pop it open and actually look at the pieces under the body. He's been forced to really improve his technical expertise to help Bloodhound and Dettlaff get things done. Half the time he's here, he's studying more than he's under the hood.

What he can tell just from looking: Much heavier cooling system than what's on the bikes, which probably means actual combustion instead of an electric battery. And that this model isn't built for speed. Too heavy, mount isn't flat enough. He could probably make it go faster, which is maybe his own wild streak or maybe it's the amethyst screaming to flex its wings. Maybe it's both of them, suited to each other and amping up their desires. He needs to actually suit up properly for this thing, or he's going to lose an eye to a bug. He goes inside to pick around for his helmet, his jacket, his gloves.

"You really should not let unlicensed operators on your machine, Shaxx," he observes dryly as he comes back out. His helmet warps his voice a little, face tinted out. It's the helmet he wears when he doesn't want the local police to be able to identify him later. Let's not get in to that, it might also have an action camera in it.

Edited (that's the word) 2021-08-06 06:20 (UTC)

Absolutely flat delivery: "Oh, I know you're good at riding."

He gives Daigo's helmet a pat, humming to himself as Titania appears to give it a quick scan. It'll do in the event of a crash, even if it's not up to his standards for combat. Daigo shouldn't be dodging sniper fire while he's out. "Titania can link you to the onboard systems." Since otherwise... Daigo's not going to know where the accelerator is at. "Probably leave the stabilizers alone unless you're going to take it on a big jump. This model rolls like a pig."

"Fuzakeru na," he drawls lazily. A familiar enough insult at this point, it's the tried and true fuck off. It really lacks the tone that would have shown real offense though. In contrast, Titania is thanked accordingly.

He probably wouldn't have touched this thing when he arrived here five months ago. It had been a long time since he'd really had the freedom to play around with a regular vehicle, let alone futuristic ones not yet invented for his Earth. He normally would be worried about sniper fire. But as it turns out, no one cares who he is here and he's had absolutely nothing better to do for months. He prefers ground vehicles for the nostalgia and comfort but hovers are common in Sumarlok, they get brought to his garage now. No choice but to have some idea of what he's doing.

"I'll bring it back in one piece," he promises cheerfully. He's even relatively sure of that, although he will definitely have to see what kind of top speed he can coax out of her. Goodbye Shaxx, go talk to the mechanics or something.

For Shaxx, the casual insult is happily familiar. It's not so different from how he and Saint insult each other at times, just one more thread in the social bond.

He just gives Daigo a wave as he rides off. If he didn't think the man would get the sparrow and himself back in one piece, he never would have handed it over.

He passes his time waiting for Daigo to get back chatting with the mechanics for a bit, before settling to lean comfortably against a wall and scroll through a book on the internal display of his helmet, not wanting to distract them from their work too much. The background noise (mostly filtered out) and movement is comforting in a way; it reminds him of being in the Tower, during times of construction. He'd be tempted to hang around here more often, but he also doesn't want to be overbearing or interfere with the way Daigo conducts his life.

Even when he's gone, it's obvious he's very pleased with today's unexpected turn of events. The things that go vroom speak both to better times and also a kind of freedom that suits that solitary streak of his. He's lived in contradictory state for a long time: never really alone and yet often entirely isolated. Even before the chairmanship he was the Dojima heir, with money and influence in Tokyo's strongest clan. There were always people around him, always people looking to him, always needing him, and many of them never seeing Daigo. Only Dojima. He could get away from them with a grin if he picked up in a race. Zen moments all to himself with the scenery flashing by.

He knows a pretty good straight away on the edge of town, as much of a 'country' road as you get around Sumarlok before it turns into wasteland too dangerous to be out on. Overgrown grass, flowers, weeds at the edge of the road and rarely any other traffic. It's not that the high speeds don't give him an adrenaline spike... it's more that the adrenaline spike causes him to narrow in with focused certainty. The amethyst flares with an eager force of wind, and he tears through the sparrow's gears until it shakes. He leaves behind dust devils of swirling leaves and flower petals, dragging back down to stationary much further away than he'd intended to. No brakes, indeed.

He'll be out there until he starts to get that headache that tells him he's actually starting to dip his manna, and then he'll finally come back. How long was that? He wasn't really paying attention at all. When he sweeps his helmet back off, his hair is a little damp from the exertion and the day's heat but he's also relaxed and happy with the indulgence.

"She's sweet," he determines cheekily. Not as smooth or as fast as his bike, but he's also been tuning that bike for the past few months. "Are you going to let us do the maintenance?"

When Daigo takes his helmet off, Shaxx finds that he's very glad he is still, as always, wearing his own helmet or he'd give away absolutely everything about their relationship in that moment--and his own habit to keep his relationships quiet, as well. It's simply unfair for someone else to be that beautiful.

"I'll have to," he says. "Amanda's not here. And you can certainly take it apart to see if you can build others, so long as you put it back together when you're done. As I said... it's not a racing sparrow, but I wasn't about to steal someone else's."

He considers his option; he does need to talk to Daigo about some more serious things, but it's not the sort of conversation to have out in the open. "When will you be done working for the day? I've got some other business I need to clear with you."

Not subtle, but it's about the best he can do. At tonally, at least 'business' in this case doesn't sound like 'sex.' Helped by the fact that it's definitely not what he's after at the moment, either.

Shaxx maybe can't keep it off his face but Daigo can with quiet, practiced ease. He just checks his watch on the inside of his wrist, shaking loose his pack of cigarettes at the same time. Technically, he can leave whenever he feels like it, he owns the place, but he wouldn't mind being given some time to finish up what he was doing.

"Do you want me to meet you somewhere?"

He's also used to this kind of request being put to him. He used to have an inordinately fancy Western-style office he could invite people into to talk at the end of the day. He got shot in there one time when a former captain's twin brother used the resemblance to barge in. That's the one under the amethyst. The CIA really were a pain in the ass that go around.

He brings both hands up to cup around the end of his cigarette while he lights it before flicking his eyes back over to Shaxx attentive for the answer.

Considering how private Daigo is about things--as much as Shaxx is himself, though in a somewhat different vein--meeting elsewhere would, in his opinion, be a useful thing. And he has a large swathe of truly private space. All he needs to do is close down his site a bit early if Daigo comes before the normal end hours.

"We can meet at the range. Let me know when you're on your way."

Gives him a chance to grab dinner or something if the timing is right, too.

"Alright, see you," Daigo agrees, and doesn't linger. He still waves over his shoulder pleasantly as he goes, adding a deceptively guileless, "Thanks for the ride."

He supposes he should work on finishing up what he was doing then, huh. He tallies up a shortlist of things to finish and puts himself to them. What a fastidious worker. How annoying. But he does leave a little early, apologizing to his employees for leaving first, because that's just what you say. He has travel time between the two locations, and it's nice to take out the familiar bike that he's been attuning to his gem. It's almost like establishing extra gear shifts with the amethyst, bursts of energy and speed that he can provide it to. He is genuinely interested in pulling that sparrow apart too, he and Dettlaff share the hobby. The deconstruction and reconstruction phase of learning is the vampire's favorite. His enjoyment is the big draw to his friend.

Daigo is distracted thinking about that as he pulls up to the range, barely noticed the trip over at all. He leaves his helmet with the bike and heads in.

"Hey." Osu, and a small smile.

Knowing that Daigo was coming over, he cleared everyone out a bit early, then went to the nearby convenience store to pick up some beers, since he knows he's certainly going to want a drink by the time all this is over. He's passed the rest of the time by cleaning up the site and doing a few regular maintenance tasks. When Daigo arrives, he's adjusting one of the gun range's holographic targets.

"Hi, Daigo." He waves the man in. "Shut the gate behind you."

He finishes putting the target back together and sets it aside. While he knows Daigo generally prefers to be more circuitous in his approach, it's just not something Shaxx is constitutionally capable of handling without it coming out as a ridiculous, wooden observation about the weather.

But he can manage a slight pause before he launches into the meat of what he needs to say by asking, "Want a beer?"

It's true, if he was meeting with the yakuza brass there would be a requisite amount of niceties to the conversation. Maybe one of the more aggressive men would get tired of it and start yelling before they were done... It's alright though, Daigo understands that there are more cultures than his own represented in the city. He can handle Shaxx's directness, even if it sometimes bemuses him deeply. He knows Shaxx feels the same about him, so it's a give and take of simply allowing them each to do as they're wont to.

"Thanks," he says by way of assent. He also understands that Shaxx is more antsy about this conversation than he is, so he will go along with whatever gestures feel comfortable to him in getting there. He can even help, a little.

"What's on your mind?" No niceties required.

Shaxx ducks into one of the half-finished buildings, where he's got a small chiller box. He retrieves a beer for each of them and offers one of the bottles over to Daigo.

It isn't quite to the level of a relief that Daigo gives him tacit permission to barrel into what he needs to say--he was going to anyway--but it still feels better that they're on the same page.

"I owe you an apology," he says. "I've unfortunately been a source of a great deal of trouble and distress over the last several weeks." Intentionality really doesn't matter; it's the impact. He'd be more blasé about it if it had just been one incident or the other, but between him losing his temper, then blowing a hole in the park, then losing his emotional control again upon Felwinter's arrival... it's had an impact on everyone around him that he does not like. "I'm sorry."

"Hm," he makes a soft hum that he's heard, but spends a moment longer in contemplation. He's heard similar apologies in the past, but always directed to the Chairman. This isn't the clan and trying to state that this apology is unnecessary is... beside the point. It's not really his place to decide that.

"Life here is a pressure cooker for trouble and distress," he decides after a moment. "Or more... life is?"

You can't get close to people and expect to never be troubled or distressed. That's simply impractical. There is no one who is in perfect control all the time, and any attempt to change that is an ultimately self-destructive one. Daigo knows that, even when he doesn't always remember to practice such compassion on himself.

"But I appreciate the sentiment."

Edited (typo) 2021-08-07 23:38 (UTC)

He tilts his beer bottle, acknowledging the point, though the counter point would be: he's packed a lot of trouble into a single month. One incident, he wouldn't feel that guilty about. But this has been a lot more.

And ultimately, he feels he owes Daigo an explanation because there is simply more to it, which he should be aware of. Though the difficult part is knowing where to start, exactly.

Afer a moment of contemplation, he says, "What happened a few days ago is that someone from home arrived. Which... you know how that can be. Iron Lord Felwinter." Daigo at least knows part of that story, at least about how they met. He had stopped before speaking of the more important, salient parts.

"He and all but two of the Iron Lords were..." It's still hard to speak about, even with him here alive. The rest are still dead and gone. There's a harshness to his voice when he continues, "...murdered over a century ago."

And he has no doubt Daigo already knows this fact, having received the ripples of Shaxx's emotional upheaval, but it still feels extremely important to say out loud. "He and I had been... together since not long after he brought me in. I don't think anyone else knew about us, and I've kept my silence until now."

The beats of this story hit him with a knowing familiarity, but he absorbs what are just words with much better composure than a direct line to the turmoil. It's so strange to feel others so literally; strange, often exhilarating too.

"It's difficult," Daigo agrees. A graciously packaged over-simplification of his understanding. It was different when it was Mine, but it... wasn't. It was still terrible, longing grief ripped back open long after the moment of impact. "But I hope as the initial shock wore off, you were able to find some peace."

He fishes for his cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket. Something to fiddle with, he doesn't even light it immediately.

Edited (typo) 2021-08-08 04:36 (UTC)

Shaxx is silent as he mulls that over. Has it brought him peace, as such? What would peace even feel like. "I don't know," he answers honestly. "Perhaps it will. I don't know what that would feel like."

He swirls the beer in the bottle contemplatively. "But it feels like I can talk about it, now, when I couldn't before." Perhaps that makes him a coward, that he was so unable to face Fel's death while the man was undeniably dead. "Maybe silence is a habit more easily broken when it isn't protecting anything. He can write his own legend now."

Instead of it just being about whatever Shaxx says, one more thing eclipsed by fucking Twilight Gap.

The quirk of a wry smile. That's his own fault for using such a loaded term as 'peace', of course that's the answer he gets. Mine's appearance in the town hadn't Daigo any peace, at all. It brought him a cold dread that their failings were going to be repeated. All he's thinking now is that he doesn't want that for anyone else. He settles into the protection of his cigarette, hand covering the lower half of his face as he looks contemplatively into the curl of smoke.

"Words can bring it all too close to home."

He understands, even if he's been hurt by that particular defense mechanism many times in his life.

"Spend long enough not speaking and inertia takes over."

Maybe like wearing his armor, his helmet. It no longer feels natural to go without, to the point that his own skin feels alien to him sometimes.

He sighs. "Anyway." It's something to think about, another struggle to have with himself later when he has the time and patience with himself to do so, perhaps. "I know you prefer to be very private about things, so I haven't told him your name. But I think he'd like to meet you. He'd like you."

He doesn't have any particular objection to introducing himself to any of Shaxx's circle, but there's a precise difference between introducing himself and being himself. Despite his time and efforts in Sumarlok, Daigo is really no better at taking off his armor sometimes. Maybe no one calls him that anymore, but the chairman lives and breathes.

"Of course," he was never going to say no. "It would be customary to take you all out on the town, even."

That's how the yakuza do it, anyway. Your sworn brothers people are your people and they receive the same hospitalities. Although, usually the scene is that your brother has been in jail for however many years, and that is why you're celebrating finally seeing him again.

He is well aware that the Daigo Felwinter will meet isn't going to be quite the Daigo Shaxx knows, which is regrettable... but they're all a bit like that in their own way. He certainly knew a side of Felwinter no one else did. Daigo's just a bit more private than most. He might hope eventually that there will be a deeper sort of friendship there, but that's not for him to determine; all he can do is put them in the same room.

"He'd like that, actually. Not necessarily a drink and party person, but... this city is very much what he dreamed the Last City could be." For all Titans are creatures of the City, Shaxx's place has always been watching over it, not poking his nose in all the doorways like he knows Felwinter would like to do. "You're also welcome to just come by the house. Whatever you're most comfortable with."

He won't tell Shaxx that's sweet, that will come off too condescending here, but his emphatic reassurance is also bemusing. Daigo will be fine. Aside from the residual grief he gets off Shaxx himself, there's nothing uncomfortable here.

"I'm sure I will," all agreement. Daigo knows how to say no when he needs to, but when he doesn't he falls right in to the cultural habit of agreeing politely with everything.

"I'll look forward to it," he offers reassuringly. He is not as effusive as Wanda, but all he really cares about is that Felwinter's presence makes the Guardians happy in the end. Whatever needs to be done to support that will be done.

He lets it go at that; he trusts Daigo to speak his own mind when he's got an opinion. Shaxx wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place if he didn't have that level of personal strength.

Though now that part's all sorted out, since he knows Daigo has been in a similar situation, he finds there is something he wants to ask. The emotional side of this has been a lot to sort through. He leans back against the wall of the building as he tries to put words to what's been quietly bothering him.

"It's awkward," he finally says. "I feel awkward around Fel sometimes. Like I no longer remember what to do. Did you ever feel that way?"

A faint, sad smile of understanding. He's a little bit surprised to hear Shaxx put an emotion like that into words in the first place, but he is probably the person to ask.

"You nurture a version of them in your mind for a long time," he says softly. "And that's not really them. They don't know anything about all the times you thought of them, with what emotions and with what need. How they've comforted and aggrieved you."

His eyes are down, focused on the tip of a shoe as he smokes. "You start the relationship over, and try to see who they really are again."

Edited 2021-08-16 23:05 (UTC)

It's a measure of how badly it's bothering him, this uncertainty, this inability to be purely happy when he damn well should be. He doesn't like this feeling, and he doesn't want to weigh Felwinter down with it when the man's been through enough and doesn't need this burden.

Daigo's words at least clarify what the problem is, and offer a solution. Not an easy one, but an existing one. Even when he's spent a lot of time trying not to think about Felwinter, not to feel his absence, he's still been that imagined person. It would be impossible for him to not be.

He lets his head fall back against the wall, looking up at the sky. "You don't really feel change as it happens," he says. "But it's visible in the aggregate. I'm not the same person I was a hundred and twenty... hundred and thirty years ago." Before the losses on the moon, before the Red War, before Saint and Osiris's return, before fucking Twilight Gap. He looks down at his hand, the one not occupied by the half-finished beer, slowly opens and closes his fingers. "Not by a long shot. Guess he gets to figure that out, too."

Much of how he's changed, he'd credit to Felwinter... but half the impetus for that shift in his dedication, the way he'd thrown himself into the work he'd found, was that Felwinter hadn't been there to push Shaxx, himself. He isn't afraid, exactly, that Felwinter won't like this new version of who he is. He gave up needing the personal approval of anyone a long, long time ago. But it would be pointless tragedy for Fel to come back to him, only to discover they no longer fit together.

It's a long term concern, and he's never been good at solving those. His talent has always been in dealing with the immediate crisis. And that, thanks to Daigo, he's got a plan of attack for now. A shockingly simple one, all the harder because it requires him to be patient and let things be until they both figure out where they stand.

But it's better than no plan at all.

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