non-quantifiable

Watching Minoth crack his knuckles is Mythra's car accident entertainment before they've even invented cars. Yeah, her right ankle clicks every time she makes any sort of use of it, and yeah, sometimes she just flexes it, and flexes it, and flexes it, and flexes it, up and back down, up and back down, click, pop, click pop, and yeah, that should be a lot more concerning than it is, but Minoth?

He's actually counting.

Mythra won't pretend that she doesn't count, subconsciously. She probably has to stretch in sets of four or five, or else keep going until she loses count at the top of her conscious mind and hope that her subconscious mind doesn't land her a lapful of lagged calculations later on. Little patterns and tuneless, almost angry humming follow her wherever she goes - no, the Aegis is not a silent, glowing angel operative. She's a loud, angry, finicky teenage girl.

Minoth cracks each knuckle with thumb tucked over and across low joint first, then opposite hand's thumb on high joint, targeted fingers bent flat. If he doesn't get them all, he has to start over. Sometimes if they stop obediently cracking, he has to crack his neck instead.

He could just snap his fingers if he needs it that bad, Mythra thinks, once, and then is treated to the subsequent sight of Minoth snapping index finger so as to slide smoothly into position the attendant thumb for the beginning of the routine - except, no one's good at snapping their index fingers, and Minoth's no exception, so he has to abandon that suit and try the whole ordeal over again.

As things that annoy Mythra go, usually insistent, noisy tics are easy fodder, because it's absolutely something you can just not do, if you're trying to be polite, as they all seem to so rigidly expect out of her.

Really, is it that they expect the Aegis to be perfect, or that they're frustrated that Mythra herself isn't?

They should know they can't change her. They should know Addam's just as flawed. They should know that being boisterous doesn't mean being evil, just because Malos is.

"Fuck."

And then there's Minoth, who's literally one of the good guys, except you'd never know it, because he is kind of sort of Amalthus's Blade, and he is kind of sort of foreboding-looking, and he is kind of sort of really standoffish in exactly the ways you'd expect a redeemed, begrudging villain to be.

When he gets broody. Most of the time, he's fine. More than fine, actually.

Mythra would almost venture to call him her friend. Is that right?

And friends help friends out, especially when friends are using cuss words.

She steps over. Minoth gives the most cursory of looks up.

"C'mon, say it like you mean it." She tries to be cool, but it works just about as well as it always does.

Minoth just looks tired.

"This is stupid, isn't it?"

"What's stupid?" Her W wobbles.

"I can tell when people are watching me, you know. Sort of comes with..." he spreads his hands up and wide, and only one index knuckle, the right if Mythra can properly apprehend, cracks. "This."

"What, hangups?"

The right thing to say is that everybody's got 'em. Certainly, everybody's got 'em with her, and every time Mythra thinks she's overblowing that an example comes to prove her wrong (and thus, right). Jin with dinner prep. Brighid with weapon maintenance and handling, a set of dogma she alters slightly whenever she gets the chance. Addam with the exact set of exceptions on when and where it's appropriate to dispatch with monsters quickly (mostly, whenever it makes him look good).

It doesn't change. And if you feel a way, you feel a way. Not really any point in digging down to the root and telling yourself why or why not, should or shouldn't.

"Hangups," Minoth nods sourly. "You think Addam thinks any less of me for doing this?"

"No," Mythra says automatically, because Addam doesn't ever think less of anyone but her, and certainly not Minoth.

"He doesn't care. Probably, no one cares. But I care. I know I look stupid."

"You don't look stupid," retorts Mythra. "You just look like yourself. Hell, if someone in your...condition didn't make a few funny noises sometimes, I'd be confused about just what's supposed to be wrong with you."

Minoth eyes her. All is quiet.

"If someone in your situation didn't make a few funny choices sometimes, I'd be confused about just what's supposed to be wrong with you."

Oh, Mythra doesn't understand that at all. She likes double entendres, or whatever they're called, likes pointing them out and teasing them over when Minoth lets her read back a few paragraphs in his manuscript, but aloud?

No chance.

"I know there's nothing wrong with me."

Her voice is shaky, undertone all "guh-uh-uh" scraping the bottom of the barrel. Should she scream? Would that help it?

"I know there's nothing wrong with me!"

Nah. One yelp's enough.

"But you'd believe it if I said it, wouldn't you?" Minoth's arms are crossed, whether to prevent further ticcing or to give an appearance of that same damned foreboding.

"I'd believe I was supposed to. And act accordingly, and all that."

He sighs. "You're going places, kid."

Mythra doesn't stop to ask what that's supposed to mean, or why and how Minoth knows it.

"I don't want to go places! I just want to be-"

The "guh" had been the beginnings of a sob, maybe.

"I just want to be good."

"And you are good. You're great, even. One of the best."

"What about you?" Mythra says crossly. "What about you, then? How's it so easy to be good, and you're not?"

Then again, how's it so hard to be good, and you are?

The wind shudders around them, pulling Mythra back into the real world. She wonders briefly if she could take Minoth to the Elysium dreamspace, or if Malos is the only one she'll ever be able to meet there.

But regardless, Minoth gives that gasping snort of a "Tch." that gives Mythra a direct window into all his mental wounds.

Sure enough: "I need being good like I need a hole in the head. It's enough for me just to be alive."

Liar. Liar, liar, liar!

"Well, in that case, what you need, for your life, is a haircut. Badly. 'Cause you've already got this hole in your head."

The faker's sourpuss is cute, she has to admit.

"What, you don't like it?"

Scowling (a scowl that half falls into a grin), Mythra throws her hands up. "I don't know. I don't know! I'm just saying shit to say shit."

Minoth grins to match. "Sounds pretty good to me."

And then it seems almost inappropriately easy, the way his arms (still, not twitching) open up, and she falls into them, and she can hear the telltale, oh-so-familiar clicking of her ankle as she stretches up, up, up, and her arms circle around his neck, and Minoth doesn't just hold Mythra there but crushes her in to him, and it feels good.

You counting seconds? she wants to ask, but doesn't, because she knows he is, because she is, and because she's got a mouthful of ponytail, and even if it's in the middle of a car accident, she can't bear to be counting, because there's nowhere she'd rather be.