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jock, meet grandpa jock
Okay so, Anna? Just not coming home one night after classes at her Very Important Law School? Definitely not as worrying as it could be, Malos supposes. He knows she's alive and the signals from their emotional bleed have been nothing but high strung excitement so she's gotta be fine, right? Right. Sure. It's not even the first time she hasn't come home.
He's chill, really. No big deal--
Hey what the fuck was that noise.
"Anna?" he calls, tentatively, moving towards its source. "That you? You're cutting it pretty close to your curfew, but--"
That's a joke. She doesn't have a curfew. She's like thirty, even if she doesn't look it.
(Malos is well, well aware this might not even be his daughter.)
He's chill, really. No big deal--
Hey what the fuck was that noise.
"Anna?" he calls, tentatively, moving towards its source. "That you? You're cutting it pretty close to your curfew, but--"
That's a joke. She doesn't have a curfew. She's like thirty, even if she doesn't look it.
(Malos is well, well aware this might not even be his daughter.)
LLOYD SAYS FUCK
Although he looks up with half a mind to scold his own alternate universe grandfather for failing at the One Thing Lloyd told him to do, the anger is choked at his throat, concern taking its place. His eyebrows pinch together in worry, and he scans Malos up and down, looking for any immediate injury or possible backlash the exsphere might have caused...?
There aren't any physical injuries, so Lloyd is kinda at a loss until he properly takes in Malos' stance. Lloyd hesitates, clears his throat because he doesn't exactly know what's going on but he has a very bad theory, and even though Raine said they should always be tested and corroborated he really doesn't want to think Malos saw -
At Malos' shocked, wheezed expression, Lloyd reaches out, just a little, to see if Malos would want whatever physical comfort Lloyd could offer, because if he's right, Malos just saw his daughter die.
"I - did you..." He starts. Licks his lips. Try again. "The exsphere... It showed you the night my - my mom passed away, didn't it."
The exsphere isn't glowing as brightly as it had been. Lloyd scoots a little closer to Malos, the need to help him like others had helped Lloyd on his nightmare nights pressing so deeply into his chest he feels sick himself.
LET IT OUT LITTLE MAN
His eyes dart towards the exsphere, trying to comprehend it the only way he knows how. It's not a blade, obviously, but is- is Anna in there? Is she aware? Can she--
A data package bubbles up in his brain, a message almost urgently relayed by the network. A quick infodump that further explains what exspheres are, how they work-- disgust bubbles in his throat, as well as crisp understanding. Anna ain't coming out of that rock, then.
Malos lets out the breath he was holding, long and slow. He's still shaken up pretty bad (literally just watched his daughter die!!) but he does his best to at least get a hold of his anger because he doesn't want to take it out on Lloyd. He can't stop trembling.
But he looks at Lloyd, considers the gentle question Lloyd asked, and realizes--
Lloyd's probably seen this memory too, huh? Or maybe he was there when it happened.
(Malos isn't sure which is worse.)
There's a lot of things Malos wants right now but highest on the list of ones he can actually do something about is hug Lloyd. He knows better than to just hug someone new without warning them first (and maybe Lloyd doesn't want a hug from the grandpa he doesn't probably have in his own world) so:
"Can I please hug you," Malos asks.
grandpa is the best enabler
Lloyd knows the nightmare well. After defeating (killing his mind whispers, you killed them) Zelos and Mithos, after Kratos' departure, Colette, Genis, and Sheena were witnesses to the nightmares that haunted Lloyd. It felt like they took turns sleeping in the same bed with him, just so they could wake up as soon as he started trembling and calm him back down to sleep.
The nightmares alternated. Sometimes it was Zelos, the blood leaking into Lloyd's already crimson pants as Zelos died in his arms. Other times, it was Mithos, his sword piercing Mithos by accident, blood coating the once shining blade with regret and misery. Most of the time, it was his mother's death. He couldn't remember it clearly, not to an extent that someone like Kratos could, but he could remember rain, the screaming, the roars.
He can remember the terror that gripped his heart.
Lloyd shakes his head. Not the time.
At Malos' request, he crawls over to his not-grandpa and throws his arms around him. It's not Colette's gentle hug, or Genis' one-armed shoulder hug, or even Sheena's somewhat awkward three-pats-on-the-back-in-silence hug, but it brings an insurmountable amount of relief to Lloyd's system anyways.
"I'm so sorry you had to see that," he mutters into Malos' shoulder, and if his voice breaks. Well.
It's not hard to understand why.
ALWAYS
"My own damn fault," he mumbles, in response to Lloyd's apology. "Shouldn't've gone prying."
He exhales, soft, into Lloyd's hair.
"I'm sorry..." he begins, but isn't sure how to follow it up. Sorry your mom's dead? Sorry you never got to know her? He means those sincerely, but the thought of saying them just makes him kind of feel like an ass. More and more about this Lloyd and the scars on his heart are becoming more apparent to Malos (though this is still, only, scratching the surface, not that Malos is aware), and it breaks his heart, sorrow deep in his soul as he confronts the sadness of a boy who never really got to know his mother--
(He thinks of his own Lloyd, little and alone-- Dirk promised to take care of him, but is that really the same?
He's pretty sure it isn't.)
Malos squeezes Lloyd tighter.
"Sorry," he says again.
It's all he knows how to say.
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He's embarrassed, the fact that he's crying, hugging this man who he just met just because he happens to understand, because Lloyd doesn't know how else to bottle up how he's feeling, just goes to show him he's no less the kid he was when his journey started almost two years ago. I can't be strong like this he thinks, because how is he going to protect the only family he has in his world when he breaks down like this?
He sniffs, stifling the sobs he wants to let out so badly because this was supposed to be for Malos. Lloyd has had fourteen years to accept and cope with the loss of his mother, he shouldn't be this weak about it. The shadows in the depths of his mind laugh at him, know that his loss of composure has less to do with his Anna and the regrets he's lived through in the past two years, the things he's lived to learn and the things he's lived to do. He's so tired of the anxiety that sits in the pit of his stomach, waiting for the day the other shoe drops and he loses someone else, so tired of smiling off the swirls of misery that pound in his mind, that make him remember every mistake he's made.
He curls a little more into Malos' chest, forcing a silence that speaks more words than he feels he should.
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He sits and lets the silence fester for a moment, trying to sort through what to say, and his own, fresh, bubbling guilt. He can't do anything other than assume this breakdown is mostly about Anna and her lack in Lloyd's life. When Anna gets home (after he hugs the shit out of her), they're gonna need to talk about that. Law school is not a dangerous place for a child, and she's full of shit, and it's time she realize that.
(Not that Malos is wholly blameless, but, hey, at least he can try and fix it.)
"You wanna talk about it?" he offers, gentle. Or, because sometimes bad memories don't need to be talked about any more than they already have, just endured, he offers: "Or I can sit here and rattle on about something else, if you'd rather a distraction."
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Malos is talking to him, he manages to register in his attempts to force up more walls. Talking about what just happened is out of the question - Lloyd does not want Malos to know about. His life, doesn't want him to know about the shit he's been through. He also doesn't want to go into those topics, either. Not now, not without Sheena's familiar presence and the strength it lends him. Lloyd's not sure if he's strong enough to speak about his fuck-ups out loud, not when he just wants to make Malos proud, the grandpa he never had.
But a distraction sounds nice. While curled up on Malos' chest, Lloyd noticed the existence of a stone, a crystal placed a little below his collarbone, and it drew his attention for only a few seconds before his mind focused on his own bullshit. Maybe now would be a good time as any to ask about it.
"Oh," Lloyd starts, and he coughs lightly, attempting to make his voice sound stronger than it is. Another smile is shoved onto his face, fully committed to changing the subject. "The - the crystal on your chest. Is it... It's not an exsphere, I know that, but. What is it?"
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He offered a distraction, so a distraction he'll give.
He reaches up to touch his core crystal as Lloyd brings it up, fingers tracing the half-diamond shape set into metal ornamentation that is only half-full, now. He can feel his ether pulsing under his fingertips, a steady beat.
"It's a core crystal," he answers. He remembers that Lloyd said he wasn't from this world-- and is pretty sure, now, that Lloyd's world doesn't have blades. "It's what blades like me have instead of a human heart. Call it... the core of my being. Everything I am? Stored right here."
Maybe not too different from exspheres, Malos thinks, now, but he doesn't want to bring it up.
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A stone holding the essence of a being's life? He's seen them, held them, broke them, stopped them from being produced - it's not an exsphere, Malos implies, but Lloyd fights off a wince at the similarities between the two.
But maybe, Lloyd's mind supplies as he stares at the exsphere on his left hand, he's just thinking too hard about it. Maybe these - blades, as Malos called them, don't work like people with exspheres and cruxis crystals do, maybe core crystals aren't produced the same, and aren't as awful as exspheres are. Maybe they act like cruxis crystals without the side-effects -
The necklace stuffed under his shirt burns on his skin, the way it tends to do when Lloyd thinks about cruxis or the crystals associated with them. He ignores it, instead rubbing at his left wrist with a little more force than usual. It's fine. Figure out more about this world, don't worry about yourself, or your home. We're here for Sheena.
"So... You're a blade? You're not exactly sword-shaped, y'know," Lloyd jokes, glancing again at Malos' core crystal. He shifts on the floor, stretching his legs out in front of him, "What's the difference between you and a human? Is everyone on this world a blade?"
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Realizes Lloyd doesn't get the joke.
Elaborates.
"No, look, there's humans on this world too-- your mom's one of 'em!-- and the difference is. Hm," He pauses. He's never had to explain it before? "Well, biologically, humans run on blood, blades run on ether. Humans can't really manipulate ether, either. ...Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself."
What's the most basic shit about blades that Lloyd needs to know? Oh, duh.
"Look... blades are..." He tries to pick the words, and it's weird, because he's so used to everyone just Knowing this shit. "When we die, we don't die, die. We return to our core crystal until someone comes around to wake us up again-- but, we do lose our memories when we return to our core crystals, so it's kind of like dying, I guess."
That got kind of grim. Uh. Anyway.
"When someone wakes us up, this thing calls resonance happens, tying us to our driver. Blades help their drivers with all sorts of things-- mostly we're good for fighting, but..." He smiles, fond. "I mean, I raised your mother, since she resonated with me when she was young and... Well, she didn't have anyone else."
His expression gets a little distant, fists clenching for a moment. The fact Anna had to watch her grandmother, her only living family, die? Makes his gut churn. (And is definitely part of why the idea Lloyd had to watch his mother die makes him feel so sick.)
"Anyway." He snaps himself out of it. "That's the basics, I think. Lemme know if you've got questions."
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He doesn't really blame Malos for his lingering confusion though. The processes and concepts he's describing don't sound like they could be easily explainable - he'd probably have just as much luck trying to explain it even if he were knowledgable. But he trucks on anyways, tries not to show on his face that he only really understands like, a fraction of what was said, and files it all away for later. Maybe Sheena knows more about all of this. When he finds her he'll ask.
(He makes sure to use "when" instead of "if". His chest tightens with fear over her missing status, and he really, really misses her.)
Blinking back to reality, Lloyd catches onto something implied in Malos' explanations. Resonance, is it like an emotional link between a blade and a driver? Or is it something else? If his mother was adopted by Malos because she resonated with him, Lloyd imagines it has to be. But then - why did Anna resonate with Malos? Why was he in a position to adopt her -
Oh. Something clicks within Lloyd's mind. Was Anna an orphan? Like he thought he was (and really, still is, with Kratos lost to space) all this time?
A feeling like dark kinship settles in Lloyd's stomach. He feels awful, would never wish losing someone's parents on anyone, but... Knowing that he and his mother both had to suffer through that makes him a little more sure that maybe they'll understand each other better than he feared when they finally meet.
After a few moments of silence, he glances up at Malos. "Thank you for the explanation!" He says, and he means it. "I can work with it, I think. I'm sure I'll learn as I make my way around here."
He stands up, offering a hand to Malos with a smile. "Sorry for breaking in, but. I'm really glad I got to meet you. I gotta get going so I can find my friend, assuming all of the soldiers running around are gone."
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Lloyd doesn't get a chance to answer, because it's then that the front door slams open. They have a clear view of the doorway from where they're sitting/standing, which means Malos sees his daughter and immediately launches to his feet to wrap her up in the tightest hug he can, considering he just watched her-- an alternate her, but still her-- fucking die.
((And then the rest of this shit happens in the other thread!))