fandomtownies | The Park, Late Sunday Morning

Crazy Apple was sitting on a park bench, her legs folded beneath her in silence. Her breathing started off slow and steady, almost like she was meditating or something.

The thing about Crazy Apple was that she knew she wasn't really some sort of other personality of Ringo's. Not in the way people usually meant when they talked about that sort of thing. It wasn't the same sort of thing as what Agito and Akito had back home. Neither of them really remembered much of what the other had done, leaving some odd fuzzy areas in both of their memories. But Crazy Apple knew everything Ringo had done, and Ringo, underneath it all, could see and hear what Crazy Apple did.

Crazy Apple was who Ringo became when she felt overwhelmed and couldn't deal with the things she was seeing or doing, but she kept seeing and doing whatever it was, which meant she'd either have to deal with it eventually or keep being Crazy Apple.

Still, Crazy Apple was independent enough to make decisions, and while she wasn't particularly interested in what Ringo ultimately decided to do, she still had little ways to influence that sort of thing. Like what she was doing now: sitting still, clearing her mind of distractions, leaving herself with few ways to avoid mulling over the thoughts swirling in her head.

Or maybe you can start dealing with your own shit like the rest of us do, Ringo, Dante had said. Fake split personality bullshit ain't cute.

Her breathing slowly sped up, becoming a little more ragged, as unformed thoughts of outrage and betrayal and an undercurrent of shame and worry slowly swirled beneath the surface of Crazy Apple's active thoughts. Ringo's emotions. The ones she didn't want to deal with. They weren't enough to push Crazy Apple aside. Not enough to pull Ringo to the surface where she could curl up and cry herself out from too many competing feelings. So Crazy Apple continued to sit there, trying to keep her breathing under control and let those emotions keep swirling.

Wondering if anything would come of it.

[ooc: Open.]

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"I've been killing demons that looked like humans since long before I knew what they were," Dante said dryly. "Still not murdering anybody in the middle of the niht."

Edited 2017-04-13 19:59 (UTC)

"Well, that's true." She sounded a little reluctant about it, but Ringo had to admit that, as far as she knew, Dante didn't go around murdering people and hiding the bodies.

"Then why the hell would you?" Dante said. "You get way more queasy about this shit than me."

"Why do you always act like that's a bad thing?" Ringo asked, sniffling slightly. "I also don't drink as much as you, or have sex all the time. But that doesn't make me stupid or dumb or whatever."

Which was true. Though there were plenty of other things people might argue made Ringo stupid or dumb or whatever.

There was a short pause.

"I don't think it's a bad thing," Dante said finally. "I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I'm kinda screwed up, Ringo. You, you worry about being screwed up, but you're pretty normal."

Ringo went still, then very slowly looked up at Dante's face and blinked in surprise and a little bit of trepidation.

Was-- was he teasing her?

Dante blinked back at her. "You are," he said simply.

No teasing about it.

"Normal?" she repeated.

She sniffled, and scrubbed at her face which was still all puffy.

"Even with all that stuff you were saying earlier?" He hadn't exactly said it to her, but even when Crazy Apple was driving, Ringo could hear what was going on.

"That's stupid bullshit you do," Dante said, "But it's normal, human stupid bullshit, Ringo."

"B-but, then how come I don't see anyone else doing stuff like that?"

Other than self-absorbed obliviousness, Ringo?

Dante didn't often agree with people's narratives, but... "Because you're not paying attention?"

"Huh?"

"What do you mean?"

She totally paid attention to other people! Well, not when she was Crazy Apple, but all the other times! Especially after Kathy had died, Ringo had done her best to make sure she knew what people were dealing with so that she could help them!

Well. "Help" them. Whether they needed the help she thought they did or not.

Dante shrugged. "I missed you turning into... whatever that was, because I wasn't paying attention," he said. "Same way, maybe you don't notice when people start acting up because they feel bad."

Ringo suddenly looked worried.

"Wh-what did I miss?" she asked. As if Dante hadn't just pointed out that he'd been distracted.

"I don't know, Kathy melting down?" Dante said.

After a pause, he added, "All my weird shit being weird but not like, 'come in and yell at me until I talk about it' weird."

Well, the Kathy thing she had totally missed. That was true.

But it was the other thing that caught Ringo's attention for the moment. She swallowed, then looked away from Dante again. "Wh-what should I have done?" she asked softly. "I was worried about you." And she hadn't been able to think of anything better to offer than to make him talk. Whether he wanted to or not.

"I don't know, don't act like I owe you an answer about anything?" Dante said, frowning at her. "That makes it more about you than me."

Blame over a year of dealing with people like Kathy for his ability to be even remotely astute or able to use his words on that one.

Ringo licked her lips. She wasn't really sure what to say to that. It was hard to even really process it.

"Um. Like what?" She was, at least, willing to try, but she'd pretty clearly demonstrated that she wasn't that good at doing the right thing in situations like that.

And even if she hadn't fully recognized that fact yet, she was getting kind of close to that realization.

Dante shrugged. "Ask, don't push?"

Okay, that was terrible advice re: dealing with him for anybody who wasn't Anders.

"If I wanna talk, I'll talk."

Which was never.

For a second Ringo looked hopeful, but then her shoulders drooped.

"It's hard," she said, voice soft. "It's hard asking all the time when no one really needs you."

As much as she'd hated a lot of the things that had come along with being the Thorn Queen back home, at least she'd felt like she was valuable to people.

Dante looked at her for a moment or two, unsure how to respond.

Yeah, he didn't really need her. But he wasn't someone who needed an awful lot of people to begin with, and he liked having her around.

"Well, you're asking because you care, right?" he said finally. "Not because you want to feel needed."

Ringo nodded quickly. "I do!"

She didn't want him to think otherwise.

"I just feel like, I don't know." She sighed. "Like it doesn't matter that I do, you know."

"Of course it matters that you care," Dante said. That question, at least, was easy.

"Yeah?" She managed a tiny little smile. One that was almost the old regular Ringo smile.

"So you'd miss me if I disappeared or something?"

"It was weird not having you bug me these past few weeks," Dante admitted. "So yeah, I guess."

Just don't taunt him with it later.

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