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[de_light]

Who: Tristan LeBlanc (Jugglus Juggler) and you!
Where: His office at the school, some bar in town, wherever else you want
Summary: AU stuff, and cats (AU info here if you want it)
Warnings: None yet

School

As much as cats are still inundating the town, they don't seem to be bothering your local school counselor too much as he sits in his office, finishing up some paperwork. With the way several of them seem to just be lazily scatted around the room, he seems to have embraced them as therapy animals.

Though maybe the one that keeps trying to sit on the aforementioned paperwork is a bit bothersome. He's moved the cat (who is exceptionally large, fluffy, and brown, and heavy enough that this feels like more of a chore than it should be) three times, but it just keeps coming back and plopping right back down. He sighs a little as he picks the cat up once again, only to have the door to his office open as he sets the cat on the floor... and watches with some frustration as it hops right back up on the desk and lays down on the papers. Though as he turns to the person in the doorway, he at least has a different reason for not getting that done.

"Can I help you?"

Bar

It's been a long day, and now it's time to relax. There's a bar not too far from his house, and while he's not there all that frequently, it is one of his preferred places to unwind. It's a cozy place, not too fancy. Maybe he's meeting up with someone tonight, or maybe he's just there by himself, enjoying the atmosphere.

Either way, the cats have wormed their way in here too. For the moment, he's sitting on a stool at the bar, alone save for the little orange tabby that's decided to climb into his lap. He looks down at it, something between amused and weary, as the cat puts its paws on the bar and casually bats at his glass, which he proceeds to pick up out of the way.

"That's not for you."

Comments

[miseris_socios]

Father ran off before he was born, his mother was killed from a car going through their front window two years ago. He'd been living in an orphanage, and then they'd found his father in Eddan and made him take Riki back with him.

... The father was very young when he'd had Riki, which seems to have contributed to the running off part. But Riki'd been fairly withdrawn and quiet since. He'd been picked on a lot, both at school and in the orphanage. He was a little harsh when pushed too far, but not overly-so. Possible early signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but at his age it's a little difficult to tell. Definite early signs of depression, at the very least.

"... There's really nothing to talk about. I don't... I'm in a house with a stranger. And I don't want to get to know someone who abandoned me and my mother."

[de_light]

"That's understandable," he concedes. "It's a hard position to be in when you didn't ask for any of it." And from everything he knows, that's definitely true. A lot of decisions about what's best for the child that were probably sound, but certainly not made with the child's consent.

[miseris_socios]

"No. And I know I'm young but they never asked me what I wanted." That much, he knows, thinking through his fake memories. They never asked him in his real ones, either. Was it better to have been on his own? He's pretty sure he was better off, even if it was more dangerous. "They think I don't know anything just because of my age."

[de_light]

"It's a mistake a lot of adults make." If anything, being the person the kids at school confide in has proven to him over and over again that most of them are in some way or another wise beyond their years. And the moreso they are, the more they're driven understandably crazy by people assuming otherwise.

[miseris_socios]

"... And they keep making it. Even when I tell them not to. They don't listen to me." They don't believe him. Maybe Riki's mother did die from a car crash, but the parallels are too strong. It hurts too much.