Homura Akemi's apartment is pretty spartan and barebones. The dominate color of the walls, cieling and floor is white, and it's often hard to tell where the wall ends and the floor begins. The middle of the room is filled with curved couches, arranged to make two concentric couch circles. The circles are broken at key places, probably to allow people to move around with ease. There is a table in the middle.
The walls serve as a large monitor or TV screen, displaying whatever Homura wants to look at at the time. They can be used to surf the internet and watch TV, but mostly Homura uses it for developing crazy-intricate plans and tracking absurd amounts of information. The keyboard and mouse are kept in a compartment beneath the table.
A couple of the couches have been rearranged and pushed together to allow Mamoru to have a decent-sized bed to sleep in. The table has been pushed off to the side, and the usual notes that she stores there have been cleared off.
Last night, Mamoru definitely took Homura up on her offer to crash at her place, which only goes to show exactly how shaken he was by what happened, and how absolutely helpless he felt about the whole situation. Too tired to converse, too tired to cope, too tired to continue even trying to pretend to be a normal social human being, he went with Homura -- walking, he was silent; on public transit, his eyes were closed and his head leaning against metal and plastic.
There was insistence on helping move couches unless there were also deathglares, and as soon as he was horizontal, there was instant passing out.
Sometime in the night, a small black cat came and sat on him, then curled up and also went to sleep.
Now it's bright late morning, everything is white except the cat and his hair he can't see anyway, and for once, Mamoru Chiba did not dream. And since there is a cat on him, he doesn't get up yet. He just reaches to pet the cat, because cat. The purring is a lot louder than he is.
Homura was oddly quiet and self-conscious taking Mamoru home. She was usually a quiet person around strangers, but this time she was even more so. It would be really really weird for her to bring a boy home. Especially since most anyone who payed attention could figure out that she lived alone. It'd be doubly weird if that jealous bunny ear-haired girl ever found out.
Well, Mamoru needs help. To Homura, magical problems tend to be life-or-death struggles, and she usually can't afford to let her personal discomfort get in the way of what is basically survival. It's a matter of scale. Social awkwardness is a small scale problem.
She still abuses timestop to make sure no one sees her actually walk into her apartment with Mamoru.
There were no deathglares when it was time to move the couches. Mamoru was cleared for health. Unless he needs magical powers to move couches, Homura would've just allowed him to. Talking him out of it would've been too much trouble. Homura was tired, too.
On the other hand, if there were any mention of Mamoru fighting youma, /that/ would've resulted in deathglares.
Seeing Mamoru pass out, Homura just stared at him with a face like 'god what do I do now?'. After a moment she just shrugs her shoulders and goes off to her own room.
Now it's morning. Homura has been up for a while. She returns, wearing normal casual summer clothes, purple shirt and shorts.
A black Grief Seed is hanging from her mouth, and she's got a couple of bags containing some fast-food breakfast things. She's coming back from a successful hunt, apparently.
She walks over to the couch-bed, leaning over the back of the couch to see if Mamoru is awake. Seeing Amy, she reaches down to scratch the cat behind the ears. "Good morning, sleepyhead."
Homura is therefore treated(??) to the sight of rumpled bedhead Mamoru caught between not at all wanting to unseat Amy and not at all wanting to face the reality of 'oh dear I woke up at a girl's house and now she's looking at me', and therefore looking rather like a deer in headlights. Also, blushing.
(pet cat insistently)
"Um-- good morning. Sorry. Hi. Thank you. Again. I-- ow!" Amy has apparently had enough insistent petting from Mamoru; her claws announce it as she launches off him and over the back of the couch, huffily, and twines around Homura's legs. Sheepishly, Mamoru sits up and swings his legs down, and his hair is sticking up every which way; reflexively he reaches up to run a hand through it.
Awkwardly, he clears his throat and stands up, desperately fishing for anything at all he's supposed to be saying in this situation and coming up blank. "That smells really good," he settles on, then kicks himself mentally.
Here comes the weird part. Homura deals with it by not talking about it. Or thinking about it. Amy goes around her legs, and Homura reaches down with her free hand and pets her, before stepping around her and moving around the couch.
"Don't mention it. You've saved me and protected my friends before." She feels like maybe she could say more, but 'social skills' is not Homura's best field.
She places the fast food bags on the table. She takes the Grief Seed from her mouth (yeah she was talking with a Grief Seed in her mouth earlier) and tosses it into a compartment below the table.
At the mention of the delicious smell, Homura responds, "I don't really make my own food. Don't have time for it. Here's some junk food if you're hungry, though." One of the bags is shoved closer to Mamoru. The other Homura keeps to herself. Both of them contain mostly the same thing. Some kind of coffee and egg+bacon+cheese breakfast sandwich deal. There's a side of hashbrowns because potatos had to be worked in somewhere.
"Before I became a Puella Magi I couldn't eat things like bacon. Being a magical girl has some fringe benefits."
She takes a sip of her coffee before starting. "How are you feeling?"
Weird? Maybe. Relieving? Absolutely. He must have been dealing with Hannah and Usagi and Madoka and various other social superballs with overwhelming feelings and the expression thereof; he was, despite knowing Homura, apparently expecting 'atypical lack of reserve' as though it were typical. He relaxes, then folds up the cover he'd been using before sort of pouring himself across the floor to the table.
"Junk food is beautiful," he says solemnly, putting his face in the bag and inhaling deeply. "This is also perfect hangover food, by the way." A beat. "Or so I've read."
One graceful self-seating and an 'itadakimasu' later, and he's unwrapping what Homura brought for breakfast. "I feel much better," he admits. "Thanks for shutting me up last night, too. I haven't-- I'm not used to people, and I'm not used to being that tired, and not remembering things really bothers me. I let it get away from me. I'm still not going to be fighting unless I have to for a while, but Storm Knight's already agreed to cover Sailor Moon for me if she can."
He looks down at the sandwich in his hands and smiles a little, suddenly and amusedly, and he looks up at Homura again.
Not used to the good parts of knowing people, either. This is the face of someone not regretting it.
"I love junk food. It's simple. Doesn't take up your time. Let's you get on wtih more important things." Homura reaches in for her own breakfast and starts to set into it. She chews quietly while Mamoru talks and explains. She seems to understand. After a swallow, she responds.
"Yeah, I'm not really that great with people either. I've gotten a little better but... it's always felt like there was a divide between me and everyone else. I used to be really shy, barely even able to speak to new people, if you can believe that."
Homura considers what to tell him about last night. Probably not the best time to mention the losses. "Yeah well, it wouldn't have been a good memory anyways. Basu-chan..." can Homura say she turned into a monster? "...didn't survive. You almost didn't either. It was... well, it was a really bad night."
Homura feels bad talking about heavy stuff like that so early in the morning. She shuts herself up and stops talking, deciding to eat instead. She notices Mamoru smiling at her, pauses for a moment, then smiles back. It's nice to have company sometimes.
"Well, at least your job is covered. You won't have to worry about your bunny."
Not that the smiling matched up with the news about Basu-chan-- but that news, he's going to just internalize for a while. It not being a good memory, he's not going to--
No, he is. It would be nice to just eat breakfast with a friend without heavy things hanging overhead, but life isn't like that from all he can tell, except for moments to be treasured. He lets the things Homura says settle in while he determinedly eats his protein and grease and starch and salt, and he even smiles wryly at the comment about 'his bunny'.
That's DEFINITELY not something he's getting into a discussion with Homura about again. It's something he gets a headache thinking about.
Eventually he says to his sandwich because he suddenly can't look at the girl across from him, "I'm sorry about Basu, and about Masako. I liked them both a lot, but they were your friends. I'm sorry." He puts the sandwich down, and his hands rest on the tabletop. "And I think-- I think I owe you answers. So if there's anything you want to know, or need to know, ask me," he finally looks up, eyes troubled, "and I'll do my best."
Homura pauses for a moment. "Puella Magi die. It's what happens to us. Miss White would punch me in the jaw if she heard me talking like that, but... that's why I hate it when girls make wishes and become Puella Magi."
"It's not that they didn't have their reasons. Masako-chan was probably going to die anyways if she didn't make her wish. Basu-chan on the other hand was just lonely. I wonder if she really feels like she got what she wanted."
Homura's voice is pretty cold as she speaks. It's not that she doesn't care, but long ago she resolved to endure as much as she had to, and she's accepted that she'll have to endure a lot.
"Masaka and Basu were both very kind people, they were good warriors, and they deserved better. Maybe their next life will be kinder to them."
It's kindof a dour eulogy, but it's all she can really say. It's the truth, as far as she sees it, and as far as she's willing to tell it. She doesn't quite have the heart to tell Mamoru that it was Basu who nearly killed him.
"Answers?" asks Homura. Were there questions? Everything happened so fast, though there were some annoying bits about not being able to speak clearly due to who was around at the time.
Aside from that, interrogating Mamoru wasn't really what she had in mind. She wasn't really sure /what/ she was thinking other than general freaking out about friends dying and almost dying.
"Well first off I'd like to know whoever hurt your 'Linker Core', or whatever it is, so I can shoot them in the face. Other than that... I don't know. How've you been lately, other than 'constantly getting hurt by things'?"
There's not really anything Mamoru can say to Homura's words about what happen to Puella Magi. All he can think about is desperately not wanting to lose the friends he's made, the people who've come to matter to him as individuals instead of in the abstract. There's nothing he can say, so he listens, and for once he actively hopes it's enough.
When Homura legitimately looks baffled at his offer, Mamoru's thinking of what they said the first time they really spoke after fighting the Witch with Basu and Masako, and looking a little confused himself. He sits there and tries to figure out whether he wants to clarify to selfishly get answers of his own, or gloss past the Homura's question to selfishly preserve his dignity.
Luckily, Homura decides how she wants to interpret it, and Mamoru picks up his sandwich and deliberately stuffs what's left of it all in his mouth at once. His eyes crinkle at the corners while he chews, and he points to his mouth as if to say 'can't answer yet, mouth full!' because he's not Usagi.
He only finishes when he's chosen what to say, and then it's spoken forcibly casually. "It would have happened anyway, because there's no way I was going to win if it came to a fight, and I'm pretty sure I'd've been caught in short order if I tried to run, so I asked why, and listened to the reasons and I looked at the desperation, and I thought maybe if it was voluntarily given energy, it wouldn't be as bad, but I was obviously incorrect. She even told me it was appeasement, and I was making a mistake, not fighting her. All I did was tell her she cried too much to actually be a villain. And then I almost got killed later anyway, so if I see her again, I'm going to tell her she was right and argue fiercely over what she's doing. She's not someone you should shoot in the face."
Mamoru picks up his hash browns and starts munching on them, slouching back, his hair falling into his face a little. "Constantly getting hurt by things is getting obnoxious. It's coloring all my other interactions," he says, getting indignant at the last like it's something he's honestly surprised and insulted about. "But otherwise, just generally unsettled. Uh. Fine, I guess."
"You /gave/ it away?" says Homura Akemi, peering at Mamoru Chiba over the rim of her cheap fastfood coffee cup. "You just let them... Alright, alright. If that's the story I won't shoot them in the face." She really wasn't kidding, but... if Mamoru says so...
"Ugh, you really are just like Madoka in some ways." The annoyance in her voice isn't hidden. Another self-sacrificing friend. Except for some reason Mamoru seems to be able to /survive/ it. Somehow.
"That's not an insult, Madoka's a wonderful person, but try to consider the people you care about when you throw yourself in danger. I don't want you thinking that you're expendable."
Her lips curl into a pout, but it doesn't last long, as if her face remembers that it's supposed to be sullen and tough and anything that could ever be considered cute can't be allowed.
She takes out a laser pointer and starts playing with Amy.
"I guess I could give you the same offer. Anything you want to ask about, now that we're... you know... not around strangers? It was pretty awkward last night. I wasn't sure how much Mercury or Iris knew about you. We didn't really get a chance to talk freely about things."
The 'ugh' earns Homura a crooked, pretty much shiteating grin. Mamoru holds up his hands, then, laughingly protesting. "I actually just had that conversation with her, so believe me, I'll be keeping it in mind." His voice and manner gentle, though, and the expression turns into something quietly wry. "I'll keep it to the people that make everything worth it. What I said last night-- it's true. I'm not some kind of superman. It's stupid of me to try to protect the whole planet."
Then he's finished with his hash browns and takes the lid off his coffee, breathing in its life-giving aroma. "Dr. Shelby doesn't know. Last time I was there, the Senshi brought me and I hadn't dropped henshin. She left my mask on. Mercury doesn't know either, but I'm starting to suspect she knows something. I might know her civilian identity without knowing it's her, though. But as much as I spilled last night, I don't think it'll be a problem," he says, half to himself at the end.
Mamoru glances up after sipping the black coffee, not quite burning his lip on it. "The only things I can think of immediately were pretty well addressed last night anyway. Like 'how the hell could I have been marked by a Witch like that'. Oh, by the way, Shelby-san is a very good resource -- she introduced herself to Tuxedo Kamen as the most illegal hospital in Tokyo. Basically her practice is treating people who get hurt by magic, whether or not they themselves are magical. It doesn't go on your record, she doesn't bill if you can't pay..." He holds his cup in both hands on the table. "I'm going to see about bankrolling her. I set up an offshore account under a fake name for it."
"No single one of us can protect the whole planet," says Homura. At the very least, she hasn't seen anything to convince her that a single person could do all of that. "... but we can still protect the ones around us. It's hard to see the people around you getting hurt, especially if they mean something to you. Once you start realizing that you can do something to change it... taking action comes natural. I guess it would be hard to resist."
Homura trails off, remembering for a moment the thoughts that lead her to being a magical girl. Regardless of how she feels now, when she started she did have a more optimistic intent.
Homura listens as Mamoru talks about who knows what, and so on. "Oh I see. It's a good thing I didn't spill anything, then. I bet it's pretty clear to both of them that you know something, but neither one of them seemed to be against you."
"Shelby-san seems nice enough. Oh geeze, I forgot to pay her, didn't I?" Homura sweatdrops. "As probably the best paid person there I should've covered it. I feel like an idiot. Maybe I'll go back later."
Mamoru mentions bankrolling. Homura snap-points at Mamoru. "Bankrolling seems like a good idea. She's a good resource for us, and also for those who think like us. We should make sure she can maintain that." Homura takes another sip of her coffee. There was something particular about the way she said 'we'. "I could chip in. I bet we could probably get a few others to, also. You know... just to make sure she's covered."
Possibly notably, Mamoru does not at all say anything about how well he is paid, or where he gets all his money from since he can't possibly also have time to have a job. Instead, he fishes around in the bag for paper napkins, and de-hashbrowns his hands calmly, only raising an eyebrow at Homura when she snap-points at him. If he can manage that, he must finally be finding his feet. Perhaps it's the coffee.
"Don't worry about paying her -- like I said, offshore account. But it'd be wonderful if you chipped in, and if some others did, too. I suspect she'd object to any organizations doing so, because then she'd be beholden to them. When it's individuals, she won't lose funding if someone stops chipping in for whatever reason. And maybe if there are others around who can help her, we can keep an eye out and see if getting a lot of business means she ends up needing help."
Nerds.
"At any rate," the upperclassman says, picking up his coffee again, "the Senshi, and a few other people, do know that Mamoru Chiba isn't normal, so I'm not very worried about it. I mean, for a little while some of them thought I was Nephrite for some reason. That wasn't a non-sequitur last night."
Homura just assumes that other people in school don't really have jobs. Maybe some of them have rich parents or something, maybe some of them have actual jobs, maybe some of them have nice allowances. Infinity students, almost certainly, would have some kind of access to money, but few of them would be able to pay medical bills out of their pocket.
"I think it's only fair that those of us who can help reach out to those who might need it. If Shelby-san reaches a point where she no longer needs it, great. That'd be wonderful, but I'm not going to allow her to go broke. Helping her out means helping out a lot of other people, too."
"Also..." Homura places her coffee down, taking a moment to stroke Amy's back before the cat wanders off, as cats tend to. "... I don't really think I want the money trail to lead back to WPS. Which I guess gives all the more reason to use your overseas account for that." She pauses for a moment, "Just... you know... I mean.... I wouldn't say I was ashamed of what I'm doing, but not all of us in WPS are nice, or trustworthy, or whatever. In case something happens with the WitchHunters, I don't want any backlash leading back to Shelby-san."
Homura picks up her coffee again and starts drinking it. Mention of Nephrite causes Homura to raise an eyebrow. She doesn't know much about him, and hasn't met him in person as far as she knows, but she's heard some rumors. "You? Nephrite? I can't see it. Well, I'm glad they didn't kill you or anything."
Mamoru makes a somewhat sour face, there. "Yeah, well. There's a reason Sailor V knows who I am. She came to ask me for help hunting down and killing Mamoru Chiba."
He just lets that hang there for a minute, allowing Homura's imagination to come up with exactly how he must have looked when he faced that request. And then he studiously finishes his coffee, and the expression behind the cup is throwing so much shade at the Soldier of Love and Beauty right now it's unreal.
"But, yes. I'd like to put you on the account for the purposes of oversight and redundancy, if this is going to be a shared effort. If that's all right with you?" Cup gets put back in paper bag, now that it's empty; Mamoru sits up straight and runs his hands through his hair again, looking a lot more awake and together than he has in a while. "Also, your television walls are absurd."
Homura blinks. She's literally at a loss for words. Her face is a mix of confusion, anger and a number of other things that pass by too quickly to track. Eventually she settles with a deep sigh.
"Wow."
It's only after she thinks about it for a moment that she starts considering how that conversation went. Her frown fights against the urge to curl into a smile, and then she snorts. "What? Oh wow. That must've been some conversation."
Whatever the look was on his face back then, she looks at Mamoru's current face and decides not to joke about it any more than she has.
"Yeah, yeah that's alright. I'll sort it out with my bank or whatever. Start setting up payments. The more of us pitching in the easier it'll be for us in the long run."
Her walls are mentioned. Homura shrugs. "Well they're not just for watching TV. I need to track a lot of information sometimes." She reaches under the table and taps a few buttons, bringing up a map of Tokyo which lists several known 'danger spots'. Most of these are locations of (already defeated) Witches. Some of them, however, are Ail related. "Just, you know. Magical girl stuff."
She finishes off the last of her breakfast.
"Usefulness doesn't make them any less absurd," Mamoru says cheerfully, crumpling up his bag and putting it wherever he's directed when looking for the garbage. "It's useful that my car is both fast and environmentally conscious, but it's pretty absurd, too. "I'm going to get out of your hair-- get some laundry done, maybe sleep some more, but I really will be okay now. And I plan on being a gentle, sensitive type who runs away from fighting until I know I can handle it."
His delivery is completely deadpan. Poor Homura may never live that down, and she'd thought she was trolling him.
For a moment he stands there, awkward again. First, he's not sure what to say, also again. Second, "Uh, did you want to keep anyone from seeing me leave? Or...?"
Homura blinks at Mamoru for a moment, but once she notices he's trolling her she just starts laughing. "Well since you /are/ so gentle and sensitive, maybe you'd like them more if they had bunny pictures."
A few button taps later, and a number of bunny memes show up in various windows around the large screen. "I think I saw you looking at these when we first met, hmm?"
Homura gets up and brushes herself off. "Well, if you're sure you're alright, then I'll walk you out. I don't really want to deal with someone telling me how improper it is to have a boy spend the night. Especially when I can't explain why."
She quickly henshins and her costume appears around her. "Just be careful, alright? You wont be able to save anyone if you're too hurt to fight. Or worse."
Yes, she fully intends on using the timestop trick again. Unless he intends to batman out on his own, which could also work.