smash_logs | THAT A HEART'S A HEART AND WE DO WHAT WE CAN

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THAT A HEART'S A HEART AND WE DO WHAT WE CAN

Who: Mondo and Jock
What: OH NO WHY ARE YOU SAD
When: Backdated toooo oh let's say the 2nd of March.
Where: Outside on school grounds.
Theme song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbDRzqI4YhE

When you let internal struggles stay... well, internal, they start to eat you up inside. Mondo didn't want to talk about his problems with just anyone. He didn't know how to bring them to light, want to cause concern, let his heart drip all out of his sleeves and make him feel exposed. He'd been avoiding his friends more than usual anyway. Another part of him craved an outlet. Usually he'd resort to venting his frustrations by physical means, whether it be coming to blows with someone or working with his hands or letting speed and the sound of a furious engine placate his nerves. They never confronted his problems at the source, though, and by ignoring them in favor of distractions, they never got sorted. They remained an ethereal substance that haunted him everywhere. It was a human outlet, then, that he sorely needed.

But sometimes, he found himself deeply rooted in his private vexations. For a guy who steered away from thinking too hard about things, it wasn't like he was incapable of swimming through complex thoughts. It just... felt like he was drowning in them. With the solitude of nothing but the lawn expanding out on all sides of him, it was easy to let his despondency express itself. It wasn't much of an expression, just sad, sad eyes and a deep frown aimed at the ground as a particularly distressing thought clamped down and pulled him under.

What he didn't know was that a possible human outlet was somewhere nearby. And it wasn't just a human outlet, but probably something far more effective at healing torn up hearts.

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~~O... O Mondo~~

It was a Jock! It was a jock who found a Mondo outside and being a lump of sad.

"Hi, Mondo!" said the cheerful doge-man. "How are you?"

Because Jock tore him from his mental mire to face against a mood that contrasted starkly with his own, he glanced over his shoulder with umbrage etched across his features. It seemed so tiresome to deal with when he was in this frame of mind. He almost snapped his response at him, but he bit back his sharp tongue in lieu of some consideration. It wasn't like he was doing anything wrong by greeting him like sunshine incarnate. Like he always did.

"So-so, I guess." He took his eye contact away.

But Mondo didn't seem okay to Jock. Mondo felt not okay. Mondo looked like he felt bad.

Oh no, Mondo!

"Mondo you look sad," said Jock bluntly. "Are you sure you're so-so? You look sad. Do you need a hug?" Jock is shuffling over with his arms held out, ready to hug you. It's in his nature (well, his nature is Rash, and I suppose hugging Oowada Mondo is a rash act) to want to keep everyone happy.

Jock, if you wanted to give Mondo a hug at all, this was not the way to do it. He lashed out to shove Jock away and closed himself off even more. "No! I'm fine, damn it!" he shouted. "Don't hug me!"

There was a strangled quality pushing at the back of his throat. Like there was a whole lot of anguish restrained beneath the surface of his voice.

"Mondo!" said Jock in shock, because this is not a thing he was expecting to happen. "You swore at me!" He looks hurt, Mondo. You just hurt your only friend left in the entire world who isn't Hagakure.

You mean what he does best? Well. He's still got Chihibro. And maaaaybe Leon. Debatable. There's always Vinnie? Does Jolt count? Oh, who are we kidding, he's not as tight with Jolt as he is with Jock.

Still feeling touchy, Mondo trod off and left it up to Jock whether he wanted to follow his slow pace or not. "So what? I swear all the fucking time. Get used to it already."

This was a pokemon who was brought up with lots of love and snuggles, Mondo. These sorts of things didn't happen to him.

Jock followed after Mondo, because Mondo was clearly upset and Jock Needed To Do Something About It.

"Yeah, you swear all the time, but not at me. You just swear. But not at me. What's wrong, Mondo? Why are you so angry? Did I do something to make you angry at me? What did I do?" Do you see those wibbly puppy eyes looking at you? Do you? Can you feel their intense gaze? Can you?

His worried babbling was grating on his already frazzled nerves, and knowing that he was only making things worse by being so callous wore them down so thin he feared they could break. Mondo's shoulders were stuck forward and so were his eyes, as though making a point to ignore Jock's attempts at digging him out of his shell. That included puppy eye aversion.

"Nothing! I'm not angry, but I will be if you don't knock it off with all these goddamn questions!"

You can't lie about emotional states to a dog, Mondo. Jock can tell by your body posture and voice that you're upset. Something's wrong and it's not fun.

There's a poof behind you and suddenly there's not a man, but a giant dog, who comes up behind you and you are suddenly buried in fluff as he sticks his head down on your shoulder.

"Hey!" He twisted around and fought out of all the fur that was suddenly consuming his face. Gross, did he have fur in his mouth? His nose? Ugh, he totally did. But once he was free and staring up at the troubled eyes that could peer into his heart, his irritation simmered down.

Oh no. Jock turned into his Arcanine self. What was he trying to do here? Was he 'shutting up'? It almost seemed like he was trying to find some other way to confront the problem that was him. One he was better at expressing, like switching to a native language or something.

Mondo wiped his mouth against his sleeve and heaved a breath. More calmly, he asked, "What is it now?"

Jock licked Mondo's cheek and a whiny-grumbly sound that said "It'll be okay, just tell me why you're sad" in pogglesprache. Jock was doing what was natural -- come up, give close contact, make sounds that made the person aware that you were there for them, and the occasional lick to let them know you understood.

That was all it took to warm him up out of his hardened behavior. Could he really hide his true feelings from Jock? At this point, he was just being stubborn and blowing him off. Maybe Jock deserved to know, even though he didn't expect him to fully understand what he was going through. Did he have to?

He allowed traces of his innermost emotions to emerge from the flimsy seal his standoffish attitude had been creating. Placing both hands around his muzzle, he moved his fingers through the thick fur surrounding his cheeks as a way to acknowledge that Jock had been right all along about him not being 'fine'. "...It's been a rough month."

Edited 2014-03-10 01:00 (UTC)

There's a low, deep rumbling coming from Jock's chest, and soft, warm breath, in the heaving up and down of his fuzzy chest. He gives your cheek another lick and looks at you with a look that says "It's okay, I'm here now."

Come, lay your troubles on his fluffy shoulders.

He let his pause between sentences hang for a while as he searched his thoughts, brushing one hand through the tuft of fur between his eyes. It was so soft, and so... comforting. "A lot's happened... And it just sort of, I dunno... It's been really getting to me. I feel like a huge failure. No matter what, even when I try to be a better person, I just wind up on my back, spinnin' my wheels 'cause I fucked up somewhere down the line. I get nowhere."

"Tell me all about it," said Jock in his little puppy noises. "It's okay. I like you. You're alright."

He put his big-old nose down on Mondo's cheek and let him feel the warm Arcanine breath. Let the fuzzy warmth of a giant fire dog make you feel better, Mondo. Just let Jock know.

The distress of voicing his own problems dragged him down even further into his forlornness. Tears looked like they were glazing his eyes, so he shut them and bowed his head against his neck. "...And I realize... just how messed up I am. How much I hurt people. I-I don't even try sometimes, it just happens without me meaning to... but, it's all because of my character that I lose people in the first place. I'm still to blame!"

He took a moment to swallow a lump in his throat. "So I'm paying the price." He buried his face completely into the fuzz and tightened his arms around his neck. "I lost someone close to me..."

"It's okay to cry sometimes. Sometimes we all have to cry," said Jock again in his grumbly poketalk. He licked Mondo's cheek. Mondo was clearly very sad -- Jock wondered who he'd hurt. Did he swear at somebody like he swore at Jock? What was it?

"Ishimaru's not my bro anymore," he wept. "Something's not right with him- he's, he's actin' all crazy and shit. We got in a fight and he told me how much he really hated my guts! Even if he's not in his right mind, I... I can't help but agree. I never even had any right to keep being what I was to him since I got here. But I did..."

He took a moment to squeeze a few silent sobs out, shaking his head a few times against his fur and not letting go. With an even smaller voice, he admitted, "Jock, I fake bein' strong all the time. I make myself look bigger than I really am. You know that, right? Inside, I'm real small..."

Ohmygosh, this is so sad. This is just terrible. Mondo thinks he's just a little baby puppy, and his best friend hates him! That's awful.

Jock whines to let you know that he feels for you and he wants you to feel less awful. "It's the fire on the inside that counts," said Jock. "Not what you've got on the outside. Even when I was a little Growlithe I could beat gym leaders. You just... you just have to make yourself better every day. You have to find somebody to help you be better every day."

It would probably be more sympathetic if Mondo understood what Jock was saying, but the nuzzling of Jock's giant furry head on Mondo's dumb, corn-shaped noggin would have to do.

"And I hate it. I still don't know what it means to be strong..." Jock's intent is clear, even though his precise wording is lost to their communication barrier. He doesn't get the message, but he gets that Jock is on his side.

"I promised my big bro at the ghost carnival that I'd be a better man than him someday, but fuck, I'm no better than I was before! He's probably lookin' down on me and shaking his head... It's tough, figuring out what parts of you need fixing. Tougher than I imagined..."

"You need a people trainer," said Jock. "You just need to find a people trainer." That would solve everything. A people trainer could help Mondo be stronger than he used to be. He licked Mondo's cheek again, then with Mondo still clinging to his fuzz, flopped over on his back so that Mondo would be lying on top of giant puppy and feel better.

In the sudden transfer of positions, Mondo cried out and clung harder as he was flipped off his feet. The world spun! He practically sunk into all that fur beneath him. It took him a second just to emerge and he did so like a catapult. It was like the tears had been startled right out of him.

He might have gotten indignant about the surprise, offer a verbal complaint or two, but he did not. Instead, he sunk back down against him and the soft, inviting warmth. There was probably no dog in the world more comfortable to snuggle against than this one. It was so much easier to surrender to this comfort than wallow in emotional exhaustion. He drew his breath and closed his eyes.

"No matter how much time passes, I'll never stop regretting what I've done. I know that... But I wanna be able to look back someday and feel like I've grown from my mistakes. I got a second shot at living. I gotta use it right."

Jock licked Mondo's face a couple of times. It was going to be okay. Mondo just had to think it would be okay. And it would be okay.

"You can do it," growled Jock. "I know you can do it."

He wagged his giant, fluffy tail over Mondo so that he would be extra warm, and yawned. Oh goodness, what a sleepy afternoon time this was.

The sleepiness was pretty contagious. But even without this outbreak of laziness catching on, Mondo would have felt the onset of drowsiness just by sinking inside a mass of heated fur. Damn, this was nice. It almost felt like all his problems were just melting away... Jock's chest fur should be his world.

He'd be more embarrassed by his paroxysm of blubbering if it were in front of anyone else. Jock wasn't judging his show of vulnerability. He was letting him know it was going to be okay, even if it didn't feel like it was. Confiding in him was a lot like the times he was alone with Chuck, and felt free to just ramble about whatever was eating him at the time, even though he couldn't understand. He understood where it counted, and so did Jock.

"Man, thanks for hearing me out. I think I might've needed that," he said with a yawn of his own.

Jock licked Mondo on the face again. Ugh, he got some hair in that one and it tasted awful but Jock did his best to not show it. He knew that the important part for right now was to just let Mondo know that he was there and it would be okay, even though Jock didn't really know how to make things okay outside of the right here and now, when the entire world could be puppy fur and snuggles.

For now, that would have to be enough.

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THAT A HEART'S A HEART AND WE DO WHAT WE CAN

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