crybaby-livio

[crybaby-livio]

Livio's shoulders slump with relief. Should he be relieved that she is willing to help? Should he expect it? He does not know, but the fact that he is not dismissed out of hand is itself helpful.

"I think they were going to the bar," he ventures, scrunching his nose. Judgment. Maybe. A little discomfort with the notion of being somewhere so busy and so public, but it is what it is.

Books, books. He scoops up their haul in one broad arm, trailing along with curious eyes angled along the rest of the scant offerings this place has.

Some smut is just too smutty. His taste may be odd, but he at least has taste.

"Uh..."

Mildly alarmed at mention of Legato, Livio looks at Meryl. Really looks. Blinks, too, owlish and a touch shaken.

What he has to say is soft. Not meek, but furtive, because if the storekeep hears him... well, they already get plenty of odd looks around and about.

"H-he doesn't. At least the one I knew doesn't...carry much on him. He can grab hold of you with his mind, move you. Throw you around. Crush your bones."

"Pictures, yeah. I can do that!" Maybe once they finish here, before they head out. A couple photos of them would be nice and if it helps Livio then even better. She beams brightly, pleased by the solution.

Hopefully it'll help.

Meryl's grin widens at the agreement that the books will last a couple days and not the weeks it might take other people. "Well, you're not wrong. But I don't think they have anything else good so we better go pay for these and then check in with the boys. Then we can do some photos before we go looking for more books."

She pauses halfway to the register, thoughtful. "Do you think we should start stealing Legato's wallet in addition to his cars? How much money does he normally carry on him? Does he even use money?"

[crybaby-livio]

Nick and the faceless thing wandering around in a leather jacket pass the plate glass front window of the general store, and Livio tense-jolts so hard he scrambles to catch the books he tossed. He fails with most of them, ducking down and fumbling as he hurriedly gathers them back up.

Flapping the paperback pages back in place is oddly grounding. Maybe it's the smell of the paper, the weight in his grasp, the physicality of it, a reminder that he is present in a body with his feet on the floor. He's here. They are here, right now, in this space, escaped from immediate pursuit.

It might not be where they were from, but it is where they are.

"...I, um."

Camera. Right. He grasps at the thread of that, calming his heart after his jump-scare, piling books back into his arms with steadying resolve.

"If you can take some pictures of them. Maybe. Maybe that'll help."

He trusts the celluloid more than he does his own eyes, in so few words. Mismatched eyes squint-reopen and focus on Meryl's face as he offers a tentative smile. A little wobbly, but he's trying.

"For a day or two, yeah. Probably."

There can never be enough books, and Meryl has solved the problem of storing them all. Now it's just a matter of paying for them.

"I do." It's in her bag somewhere, but it shouldn't be hard to pull out. "Do you need it?" She hadn't used it in a while, now that Meryl thinks about it. But she doesn't mind letting him borrow it if it helps him at all.

She gets the broken glass feeling though. She feels like that sometimes, on the worst nights when she can't sleep and the only thing she can see behind her eyelids is white walls and bloody tables.

Meryl doesn't say anything about it though, turning her attention to the shelves again. They'll need to go back soon, before the other two get too antsy about them being gone too long.

"Think we got enough books?"

She doesn't think so, but one can never have enough in her opinion so maybe hers doesn't count.

[crybaby-livio]

"I-I don't. I don't know. Maybe."

Exposure therapy and Vash the Stampede. Livio gnaws on nothing. His brows furrow, crinkling the edges of the tattoo spanning the left side of his face.

He looks down at another book in his hands, something about cowboys and angels on a long-worn paperback cover. Lonesome Range. Whoever owned this book must have been hard pressed if they had to sell it; the pages are dog-eared and yellowed but still intact, and Livio can't help but feel strangely attached.

Like something worse for wear can have new meaning, have new life. Against any judgment at all, he tears up.

"I'll try," he croaks, cracking the smallest and feeblest of smiles. "I'm. I feel- it feels like broken glass between my ears sometimes. But I'll try."

Chin dropped, he overturns the novels to clasp their spines, sucking in a breath. Inhale, exhale. Measured. An exercise. Where does he remember that from?

"...you have a camera, right?"

It'd be a weird question if she didn't have context. "I mean yeah. He looks like a normal person to me. I guess I'd be kinda freaked out too if he didn't."

But then, it is Nico so maybe she wouldn't be. Hard to be sure, honestly. In the beginning maybe, but now, after three months of placing her life in his hands over and over, and after Julai? She trusts Wolfwood–any Wolfwood–with her life, if nothing else. And Nick and Nico especially. So maybe she wouldn't have been phased by a nebulous shadow-thing.

"...It is kinda weird that he doesn't look like a person to you, though. I wonder if that's something about him in particular, the place he's from or something about whatever that asshat who calls himself a doctor did." Too many variables to be sure, not without testing. And even if they could test it, she's not sure she'd want to.

"I think for now the best we can do is just... exposure? Maybe? Or maybe the Vash that lives here could help. The only other expert I know in metaphysical shenanigans is the Cube and that's not exactly... er, a person. Also the idea of it understanding how brains operate terrifies me."

[crybaby-livio]

Livio hums a happy sound, reflexive, at... approval. He realizes as much, pursing his lips into a moue. But, as she says, they might find it amusing, and that is good.

"...maybe should read the good bits out loud, see what they say," he muses, tucking the book up under his arm and poking around the shelf for anything else that might look promising. Maybe Meryl just can't see the titles on the upper tiers.

The thought (and the quiet that accompanies) is reflective. Maybe a little too drawn out for his taste. He examines the urge to snap-respond juxtaposed against the sense that he should keep his trap shut, and instead of really thinking about it, he instead reads off some titles.

Strangers with Funny Socks

Wife-Squared

Alien Boyfriends

...and then after that he pauses again, gesturing vaguely.

"Do you."

How to even phrase this.

"Do you see a face? In him? I see that you have eyes, a nose, a mouth. Ears. You... have skin. That looks like skin."

Right, Nick is Nico to Livio. She sighs, skimming another set of boring titles. The angels, he says. Vash and Knives, Meryl assumes as she leans over to see what he's picked up. A snort of laughter escapes her. "Get that, they'll think it's funny."

His explanation for why he wigs out about Nico makes sense at least. She can't see it personally, but she suspects that the experiments he's had to suffer through mean he's capable of seeing something she isn't. An enhancement of some sort she just doesn't have. Meryl can't exactly help with that, though. She can't undo years of experiments, or change whatever happened to the three of them after those experiments.

"Maybe if you don't think about it? He's still Wolfwood, even if he's a bit weird for you." Maybe if he just talked without looking at him until he got used to it it'd help? Exposure therapy or whatever. Work up to looking at him until the whole weirdness didn't bother him anymore.

"And I mean, he's not that bad. I think you'd like him, outside the whole. Weirdness thing you got going on."

[crybaby-livio]

            [     i just wanted to be taken seriously     ]

[crybaby-livio]

So addressed, Livio tenses as if prodded with a static-electric shock, the kind of joy buzzer that really isn't. They are not scuffing socks over ratty carpet and tapping fingers on doorknobs, though, and even with the energy in the air, all the trashy books have to offer are weirdly synthetic pages and plenty of dust.

He scrunches his nose and frowns, reconciling with the fact that Meryl did in fact ask him a question, because that's what people do. They're people, both of them.

"...you call him Nico, but—he's not. Not the same. Not the Nico I know. My brother's with us."

Another pause. Lengthier. He picks up a book with a definitively ridiculous cover: a man reclined, reading, ignorant of the lizard-thing, hairy hulking man-creature, and horned long-faced beast looming behind him. Pounded in the Butt by Breaking the Fourth Butt: The Meta-Tingling.

"I can't see his face. Not even if I squint. It's like... trying to look through an oil slick in the wind, a-and. He feels like them. Like the angels. Humming, every time he talks, it makes my teeth itch."

@crybaby-livio || surprise book club meeting

"So, what's your issue with Nico?" Meryl shoves the book she'd been flipping through back on the shelf. The selection of romance novels in Awaysis is, frankly, abysmal. Even for the trashy bodice rippers she had a guilty pleasure for, there isn't much worthwhile.

She flips through a couple more titles before pulling a pair off the shelf and setting them in the crook of her arm. Best of the lot, she supposes. "I've been meaning to ask. You get really weird about him every time he talks to you."

[crybaby-livio]

not ǫᴜɪᴄᴋ enough

not ɢᴏᴏᴅ enough

will you ᴇᴠᴇʀ be good enough?

[crybaby-livio]

Aw man it’s Shitpost Sunday

[crybaby-livio]

[crybaby-livio]

gung-ho guns

[crybaby-livio]

Nico sneaked up on Livio — luckily he was engrossed doing something at the moment. He gulped. This Livio was big. Really big. But he was determined. With a sly grin on his face, he launched his attack.

❛ Hey, Livio! ❜

Nicholas shouted, as he made a quick dash towards the unsuspecting man, aiming for his head.

Livio is mid-bite of cup noodles, hunched over the spicy junk food like a half-starved dog. His pupils pinpoint at the shout and the movement at his flank.

Turns out that pivoting his torso to protect his noods means leaving his head and neck vulnerable to hands that have always been faster than his.

"Muh habt!"

Hatless and half-bald, he has no choice but to give chase with a mouthful of salty starch, leaving the wax paper cup behind.

[crybaby-livio]

bonks him upside the head with a soda can ... just like old times :,)

The missile SLAPS against Livio's skull with an audible 'plack!' of denting metal; louder, though, is his yelp, bulky arms pinwheeling in the effort to save his hat - or the can - or both - but failing altogether.

"Wha- HEY!"

Heeeeeey.

His frown is audible before it is visible as he stoops to recover his hat and the offending beverage, which sprays a fine orange mist.

"What was that for?" he whines, cracking open the ruptured can to drink before it goes to waste.

[crybaby-livio]

After the Sand Streamer battle. (Holding my followers hostage by continuing my Gunghoposting and Livioposting until I get tired of it)

[crybaby-livio]

Livio the Double Fang | Composite Trigun

selective | independent | canon-observing but inclined to world build | multiverse/multiship

Details under the break.

MUN

X/Steel Precambrian internet entity (30+) Variable activity main ffvii blog: @steeleidolon wolfwood blog: @full-of-mercy fanfic/art: [AO3]

RULES

18+ themes / minors DNI

I will:

RP just about anything. This includes crossovers, duplicate muses, dark themes, sexuality/gore/violence, etc. When in doubt, please ask.

Tag NSFW content and place it under a read more.

Tag content warnings as cw: *****

I won’t: 

NSFW with underage characters or writers. Ever. Full stop. I have very few ‘hard no’ limits; this is one of them.

NOTES

I don't typically use icons/special formatting. It's perfectly cool if you do, though!

Always hunting for the sweet spot of writing length. Will attempt to match, but prefer meaty multi-paragraph for general play. Let's create something!

Askbox is always open.

Prompts are always open.

Open Starters are open unless otherwise tagged.

Answered prompts can always be turned into threads. Go ham!

Discord available for mutuals.

VERSES

Subject to change. Will be adding more notes here as these verses develop.

verse: maximum | Trigun Maximum canon. verse: stampede | Stampede canon. verse: recursive | Stampede-flavored. Displaced from his home timeline, freed from Chapel's clutches, malleable, Livio must find a way to cope...or to catch up. verse: begin again | Post-TriMax. The Eye is closed, though perhaps not completely, perhaps not forever. Wrestling with what he was, what he was made to do, and with his own inner accord, Livio must grow into his own personality. Much to atone for. Much damage to undo. The first steps are the hardest.