#expositicn nellie t1

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"Morning, Nellie." Fingers brush through the younger woman's hair as Keiko breezes past, a silent thank you both for the food already awaiting her at the table and yet another sleepless night spent watching over her son. Nell has quickly become a near-permanent fixture in the Miura household just as much as Keiko's own mother ever since he was born - before it, even - and, well...

Unconventional as the setup may be, it's a relief, honestly, to not be in this alone.

Hiroshi is miraculously somehow still fast asleep, though Keiko will likely have to wake him to feed soon enough. First thing's first, though: better to take care of herself now, before her attention is needed elsewhere. With another glance towards her friend, Keiko only has one question before she digs in. "How was he?" // @expositicn + plotted starter!

[chasingtitans]

It doesn't take long for Hiroshi to wake, nor for Keiko to gather him up into her arms. Yet it's already been long enough, apparently, for Nellie to miss her presence.

"In a minute," she calls back. Only one night may have passed since she'd last seen her son, but in the lifetime of someone who's still seen less than a handful of them, one night is forever. She doesn't want to rush this moment. It takes a few more minutes to change him and have him comfortably back in her hold before she's ready to head back out, but once she is, she doesn't delay in making her way back to Nellie's side.

"You haven't given up already, have you?" There's no malice nor mockery behind Keiko's tone as she settles herself on the ground beside the couch. She can only keep her focus solely on her exhausted friend for the briefest of moments, however, before Hiroshi begins to fuss in her grasp, already growing hungry. Without preamble or pretense, Keiko pulls down one shoulder of her robe, guiding him to latch on as she waits for Nellie's response.

nellie steps into the living room, eyes fixed on the couch. she holds a blanket tightly to her chest. grey, fluffy and freying slightly at the edges. itching to climb under it and drift into a dreamless sleep, she struggles to move away from the spot at the door. she can hear keiko in the other room. the promise she had made — not even a real promise but one she couldn't betray. she sits down on the edge of the couch and rubs at her tired eyes. she takes a deep breath and lies down.

nell closes her eyes. counts to five. opens them again and sits on the edge of the couch. could she pass off pretending to go to sleep for an hour or so whilst keeping herself awake? kei would probably know. she had a way of knowing everything without a full explanation. "keiko?" she calls out softly.

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Nellie's attempts at stalling are painfully obvious. With a soft chuckle, Keiko shakes her head, dissuading any more of them before she can continue. "The dishes and crackers will survive where they are until tomorrow, if they need to." The more likely outcome is that Keiko's mother will take care of it if she can't manage to by herself, but regardless, they're nothing worth worrying about right now. "What will actually make this far easier is if you're able to sleep enough that you're not about to collapse standing up, and I can sleep uninterrupted again tonight."

Keiko's smile grows softer when Nellie agrees, and she leans across the table to squeeze her hand in gratitude before pulling back and beginning to make her way out of the kitchen. "Come. I needed to feed Hiroshi soon, anyway; let me go wake him, and then we’ll stay with you."

"i don't know, keiko..." maybe her loneliness was part of the problem. it always had been. reaching out for people in her nightmares and being met with darkness and a bitter cold. she glances towards the living room, the couch no more inviting than it had been at three in the morning when hiroshi had been perfectly peaceful, fast asleep and well-fed. the hum of real housewives reruns the only thing keeping her tethered to this side of sleep.

but keiko had, for all intents and purposes, never led her astray. she'd helped her in college when her headaches wouldn't go away. hell, she'd helped with science fair project in ninth grade and come only second to the guy whose father was a literal rocket scientist. if there was anyone that could help her, she was sitting right there.

so nellie nods. "you're right." if she was going to do it for anyone, it would be for the little boy under her charge. "are you sure i can't do anything else for you first? the dishes- i could do the dishes. or vacuum. i think i dropped some graham crackers last night i forgot about. i can't leave a mess, i'm supposed to be making this easier." a beat. catching kei's eye stops her sleep-deprived spiral. she nods. "okay. i'll sleep."

[chasingtitans]

Keiko inhales a heavy breath. It's always hard, knowing that Nellie is suffering, even with her all grown up. Sleep issues are far from Keiko's area of expertise, yet the scientist inside her still wants to pick Nell's confession apart, to poke and prod and search until she finds out exactly what she has and hasn’t tried already - what could possibly make this better - but...

Knowing Nellie, that approach might do more harm than good. Especially right now.

There's still something else that she can do, though. "Why don’t you sleep now? During the day. In the living room, even, if you want. Then we’ll be here." She's blatantly including Hiroshi in that we, a reminder of who else this is for. It's forever a toss-up if Nellie will try something difficult only to help herself, but Keiko can already see clear as day how much she loves her boy.

It's a reminder of what's at stake, too, though. If Nellie keeps going down this route, if she loses her mind to this struggle, she'll no longer be safe around someone so fragile. "You're right. It is hard. But this way you won’t be alone, if it happens again."

"i've heard they never get more angelic than that." brand new, perfect and innocent. the more nell thinks about it, the more it makes sense. maybe it's the sleep deprivation and the recurring nightmares; but she'd never been more at peace than when she was hiro's age. sometimes she wonders what it would be like when she had kids of her own. was it a mother's job to preserve that for as long as possible?

she pokes at the food on her plate, egg yolk pooling at the side of her plate. she presses her fork against the edge, pushing it into the centre of the plate so it doesn't leak over the edge. "i'm fine." one glance in keiko's direction and she relents. her attempts to tell her siblings about the return of her childhood nightmares had been largely unsuccessful. but keiko had always been there. an extra sibling without the expectations the others had.

"i've been... it's hard to sleep lately," she admits, finally setting her fork down. giving up the guise of an appetite lets her speak freely — "when i was a kid, i used to have these dreams. nightmares, really. they went away for a long time but now-" she sighs. "they're back. every time i go to sleep and it's... it's hard. nothing fixes it."

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Keiko can't help but laugh at that. "An angel? He's a newborn." A proud smile does linger after, though. Hiroshi really has been surprisingly well behaved so far, most of the time, but at the end of the day he's still a baby - she's not counting on it to last.

And even with help, even with an easier one, new babies are still exhausting. Especially this early on, with her own body still in recovery from bringing him here, her mind still reeling from the mental toll of his father not being alive for any of it. It's only once she's finally eaten what she needs, takes the edge off that ever-lingering exhaustion, that Keiko can even think to look at Nellie for long enough to notice that the dark circles under her eyes have worsened since yesterday.

"That'd be amazing, but..." But Nellie is of no use to Hiroshi - never mind what she's doing to herself - if she puts them both in danger from extreme sleep deprivation. "How are you? Have you even slept at all since we came home?"

keeping herself busy was proving more and more difficult as the days ticked by. hours spent chasing away fatigue so she wouldn't have to slip into that stage again. somewhere between life and death. she'd been awake three days now — hiro was the perfect excuse. she'd come back to town right on time to assume aunt duties. exhaustion was starting to permeate her bones; but she hides it well. so she thinks. it'd easy to hide behind the scrambled eggs and only slightly burned toast.

"literally a perfect angel." nellie takes a seat opposite, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. her thumb traces around the rim of the cup. "i can stay another night if you need me to. he's really no trouble."