Grouch (Koty)

[Dante Russo]

Dante's eyebrows twitched. That was the second time in, like, a month that'd been invited to someone's dorm after possible causing them harm. He'd thrown a book at Wren (on accident), and he'd punched Koty in the face (not on accident). What the hell was wrong with these people? Why did they seem to like him enough to spend extra time with him? Eh, whatever. He had opinions about what kinds of people one aught to associate with. He, himself, was not one of those people, but to each their own.

Koty was back on food now anyway. He couldn't say he was completely opposed to the idea of taste testing. It'd been a long time since he'd eaten something homemade, that he didn't make himself. Rebecca never cooked. He couldn't even remember if she was skilled at it, he was so young the last time she'd made him anything to eat. At any rate, Dante almost never passed on the opportunity to critique.

When Koty glanced over he would find Dante dragging thoughtfully on his cigarette. It might have been hard to tell if he was listening, or lost in his own thoughts.

It was a little bit of both.

"I enjoy pasta," he said. "Make a good red sauce, lots'a garlic, maybe some meat in there if it was a good week.." Dante glanced down at his hand and noticed it was still gloved. He let his cigarette dangle from his lips for a moment while he stripped off the glove and tossed it into Koty's lap. Koty was saying something about not wanting to muck around in his head again, and Dante smiled slightly. And then he said the word 'fate' and Dante shook his head.

"Dude. Don't talk about fate. Aight? No such thing. No set paths."

[Koty Hura]

"That is an interesting thought.. No fate. No set paths. It is one I am willing to forgo mentioning in your presence, but one that I will have a harder time letting go of." Simply put, it was an awful lot easier to believe, or at least hope, that fate had a hand in things.. that things happened for a reason. If not fate, then Koty received his ability completely by chance.. Possibly genetics, possibly a completely happenstance mutation of some sort. He was not meant to do anything with his ability, because nothing was meant. His mother had died simply because her time had been up and she had succeeded in life at what she was meant to succeed in, but simply because she had been going too fast and someone hadn't payed enough attention.

He had been an only child without a father figure not because it would lead to his relationship with Vincent or because he was meant to have the perspective he did, but because of random chance. There was no point to anything he had reasoned or justified away as fate or purpose.. Just random chance. Chaos. "A much, much harder letting go of.." It wouldn't be hard to tell that Koty was a bit lost in thought... Perhaps Dante had found his first soft spot with Koty. Something he could really use later on if he felt the need to get under Koty's skin..

But as deeply as Koty seemed to be staring off into space, he blinked and brought himself right back to reality. "I have yet to attempt making any pasta.. I would very much like to observe your methods. If you are willing to cook for two, I would even be willing to procure the ingredients for both meals, and you are welcome to any leftovers. I can teach you to make sushi, how to use a wok, how to sear steak and use the leftover bits to make a simple and very flavorful gravy, how to cook tofu and rice.. I believe if your style prefers measuring by eye, you may enjoy nigiri.. the dish is prepared mostly by feel."

Damn, Koty was talkative today. "By chance, Dante, are you thirsty? The cigarette.. that I seem to have misplaced.. seems to have left me somewhat parched."

[Dante Russo]

"Yeah, man. Sounds like a plan." Dante liked learning things, but more than that, he liked showing off. In his opinion, he made a damn good red sauce. He'd have to make sure Koty got all of the spices he needed. He was fairly sure oregano wasn't a standard Japanese spice.

"By chance, Dante, are you thirsty? The cigarette.. that I seem to have misplaced.. seems to have left me somewhat parched."

Dante made a facial expression that might gone well with a laugh. He scrunched his nose, dropped his jaw, and smiled. "I smoked your cigarette, man!" he said, turning his face toward Koty briefly. "I decided you'd had enough when you fuckin' passed out!" Now Dante laughhed. Because, seriously. Dude passed out from smoking a cigarette. That was hilarious!

"Anyway, yeah. I could do with some water," Dante agreed. He put his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe again, and slipped all of his cigarette butts into his pocket. He didn't like leaving them around. Sure, he smelled like burnt tobacco all the time, but he didn't need to leave physical evidence of his rule breaking just lying around for the adults to find. "Lets bounce," he said, getting his feet under him and standing up.

[Koty Hura]

Koty.. seemed a bit surprised at just how nonchalantly Dante had agreed to the whole pasta thing.. and allowed himself a small shrug. "Very well. If you require any ingredients I do not possess, we can take a trip into town and I am happy to purchase anything you need." That would definitely include oregano, garlic, and ground sirloin. Cause Koty didn't have any of those things.

Oh. Duh. Dante had taken it and smoked it. That probably should have been fairly obvious, all things considered.. Koty did little more than blush slightly before mumbling a nearly inaudible "Thank you." as he removed his glove and stuffed them both back into his back pocket. He was already on his way back to his feet as Dante agreed to get something to drink. For someone with such a tough background, Dante did at least have .. a pure laugh. It sounded natural and it wasn't forced. If anything, it was strangely pleasant. Something worth a little work to get, even if it was at Koty's expense. Perhaps he would have to be stupid and try smoking a few more times after all.

As Dante stood, Koty ran a hand roughly down his face.. He was sweating a bit. The blood pressure issues and changes and the nicotine and the passing out had all ended with his body being a little stressed, and he had heated up to the point that he was less than comfortable in his long-sleeve dark shirt, so he pushed the sleeves up to his elbows on each side and ran his fingers around his collar to let some air in, nodding to Dante before he headed in the direction of the cafeteria. "You are welcome to lunch as well. I am by no means rich, but I would be more than willing to buy your lunch if you intend to cook tomorrow. I plan to procure some sort of food when we arrive at the cafeteria, and you are welcome to join me."

Koty didn't think of himself as rich.. but his mother (despite being the 'fun parent' rather than the 'good mom') had worked at a rather large pharmaceutical company doing quality assurance and efficiency evaluations. She was a full blown chemist and made very decent money. She'd left him their apartment, everything she owned, her entire savings, her retirement plan.... He was actually kinda pretty rich, he just didn't know it and wouldn't have access to most of it until he turned 20.

[Dante Russo]

Dante's head spun as he stood up a little too fast. "Whoa, head rush," he mumbled, and took a step in an attempt to ignore it. Then the world seemed to be dropping away suddenly, and his heart pounded. "Shit, that's not--" Dante felt himself tilting, like he'd had too much to drink and the ground was suddenly coming up to meet him. He couldn't see, and with a gasp Dante reached out to grab something. Anything.

That something happened to be Koty's arm, but in being suddenly sucked out of the present Dante couldn't discern exactly what he was hanging onto. It was solid, that was all that mattered.

His eyes rolled back and his eyelids fluttered. Dante breathed hard as the future began downloading itself into his brain. Every path. Every choice he could make. Like a road map of possible decisions. Millions of possible scenarios for any given moment in time.

They all revolved around Dante's life. He had yet to see anyone else's timeline. Everything he saw was from his own perspective, and most of it wasn't appealing.

He could loose Jo Jo forever over this bullshit. He could convince Jo Jo to give him a thousand more chances. He could be manipulative. He could use guilt to his advantage. He could be genuine for once in his life. He could get Jo Jo back with an honest conversation. He could let Jo Jo go. He could give up. He could decide that it didn't matter. He could just move on. He could replace Jo Jo with the boy standing next to him. He could isolate himself. He could fall into old habits. He could hurt himself. He could commit suicide. He could graduate from Hammel. With honors he he bothered to try. He could get a job. He could go to collage. He could be brilliant. Or he could work in an office. Pushing paper. He could be miserable. He could be a criminal. He could deal drugs. He could kill. He could go to prison. Multiple times. He could get hit by a truck. He could be happy. He could find love. He could move beyond his past. Raise children. Have a family. He could be good. He could be abusive. He could hurt everyone close to him. He could push them away. He could meet Rebecca again. He could fall back into her mess. He could murder her. He could abandon her again. He could get her help. He could become an addict. He could be homeless. He could drink himself to death. He could overdose.

The paths only ended at his death. Some were long. Some were startling short. Too many ended when he took his own life. Too many ended because of substance abuse. Too many paths were dark, and gritty, but honestly those were the ones he focused on. Those were the most familiar, and seemed the most likely.

These paths, and the map they made, expanded. Reflecting the state of the world. The macro influenced the micro. A pandemic could wipe out the human population. There could be a third world war. The US government could colaps. Aliens could land. Hammel could catch fire-- oh there were so many ways things could go horribly wrong. For a brief moment, the information sorted itself into nodes. Points, with paths branching off, connecting to other points. For a split second everything made sense, and then it faded.

Dante took a sudden, gasping breath, as though he'd been underwater for too long. His eyes opened, and Dante suddenly pulled away from Koty, stumbling over his own feet and falling to the ground. Not only had he been holding onto Koty's arm, but while he was unaware of his body, he'd leaned into him. Forehead pressed into his shoulder. His other hand clinging to Koty's shirt. He wasn't together enough right now to worry so much about his pride, but the closeness had startled him when he opened his eyes.

Trying desperately to catch his breath, the vision was already fading. It felt like a daydream now. Far away. Not quite real. Dante got to his hands and knees, fingers digging into the ground and unrooting grass as he balled his hands into fists. Everything was still spinning a bit, and the edge of his vision was already starting to do that fuzzy, glowing thing that meant the pain would come soon.

[Koty Hura]

Koty had already began taking a step away when Dante claimed he had a head rush. He'd turned back to make sure that only one of them passed out this particular afternoon when Dante's expression became.. panicked. "Not what?" But before Koty even realized he'd finished his query, there was a hand on his arm and an explosion of color and light and movement and.. everything else.. A large one.. went off in his head. Koty's first subconscious thought was that he was having a stroke.. That a single cigarette had given him a stroke, and he was about to die...

Except that everything that was exploding into existence was.. about Dante. There were countless decisions, paths, outcomes, choices, possibilities.. So many of them dark, sad, downtrodden. All of them bursting into existence.. one after another after another and at the same time as a dozen more.. Jo Jo, drugs, Rebecca, Koty himself, a thousand different deaths by ten thousand different things. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, everything that could go right did, every choice with an outcome that lead to another choice with two, to another with more and more and more and each thing was all happening, all known, everything was so blended and yet so separate..

How was there room in any mind for all of this? This.. this had to be Dante. It was Dante who was becoming a dot-com billionaire, Dante walking across a stage with a diploma, Dante bloody and bruised glaring at a camera in a police station, Dante falling in love, Dante overdosing, Dante jumping off a bridge, hanging himself, taking sharp steel to his own flesh, crying, laughing, dying, living, each of them in a thousand ways.. So much.. so much... Too much. Far, far too much.

And beyond the possibilities, there was a giant room full of strings of these very thoughts, intertwined and knotted and intersecting and dividing and on fire and frozen stiff and cut off as soon as they began and leading to nowhere and circling the entire room.......

And there was a breath. A gasp. Koty's arm was thrown outward.. When Dante had grabbed onto him, Koty had pulled Dante in to a desperate hug.... something that he was actually very afraid of. Hugs were contact. It was impossible to avoid contact in a hug.. but here he'd been hugging tightly onto this train wreck of a boy.. likely not breathing for however long he had been awash in what he could only assume was the precognitive episode of this person that had only minutes ago clocked him upside the face...

Koty was frozen in position, still trying to sort through the .. the whatever exactly had happened. But while the experience was fading quickly for Dante, it was still in full bloom in Koty's head. Everything all at once.. everything there. The instant focus was drawn to one place, everywhere else became blurry and chaotic, but focusing on anything was exhausting, and the chaos was massive. He couldn't wrap his conscious mind around it... Not.. not all of it at least.. but he couldn't find what to focus on. Nothing made sense even though it all made perfect sense.. Cold sweats.. Koty was sweating and cold.. he could feel the breeze on his arms in the midst of everything going on in his head.

Before Dante's vision faded completely, he would see Koty fall bonelessly to the ground for the second time.. and just lay there slightly crumpled.. staring wide-eyed and unblinking at nothing..

[Dante Russo]

He was supposed to be getting control of this. That's why he was here, right? But he was no closer to having control than he was when he came here two years ago. He couldn't do it on command, he couldn't stop it from happening when he didn't want it, and he couldn't filter any of the information out. It was just everything at once, at random, with only seconds of warning.

Dante panted, trying to shift his weight on clumsy limbs. He got his feet under him, and carefully stood up. Legs shaking. Hands trembling. He was very aware of his need for a glass of water.

"Hey.." Dante glanced at where Koty had been standing before, then he looked down. "Shit." He pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead and furrowed his brow. "Shit, dude," he muttered, stepping toward Koty. He leaned over him, already squinting to cut out most of the daylight from his vision. Light was starting feel like spikes stabbing deep behind his eyes. "You aight? I fuckin' touched you, didn't I? Fuck! Ugh.." Dante covered his eyes with his hand and scrunched up his face. "God, that was really fast," he muttered.

Every time it seemed to be hitting sooner. When the visions had first started, the headache didn't hit until hours later. Over the years, though, the gap seemed to be closing. Not even five minutes now. Squeezing his eyes shut, Dante lifted his hand to grab the hood of his sweatshirt and pull it low over his eyes.

Dante took a moment to breathe through the pain before opening his eyes slightly to squint down at Koty. "Can you stand up?"

[Koty Hura]

Suffice it to say that Koty didn't hear much of what Dante had to say.. He was hardly aware he wasn't standing anymore, let alone that Dante was still there or that the boy was talking. His vision and his mind were awash with scenes from Dante's premonition still, it was so much that Koty didn't have room in his brain for.. breathing or balance, let alone hearing.. But.. as the rush of it finally wore off.. it got easier and easier to dismiss the less likely and less desirable outcomes.. Easier to forget them, shove them aside.

And his vision slowly faded back into being.. Dante.. looked to be in pain. And was sideways.. Or, no. Koty was definitely on his side. Unless the ground was sideways too.. "Urgh.. That was... intense.." He rolled onto his stomach and just breathed for a moment before slowly and groggily pushing to his feet, looking absolutely exhausted and hardly able to keep his eyes open... "Uh.. Yeah, I cn stanup.." He brought his hand to his forehead, then slid it down to rub his eyes.

"I takit.. tha's .. jus how stuff works for you? ..Ugh. Tha's horrible, man. Feels lika firecragger.. wenoff in my brain.."

Obviously enough, Koty looked and sounded drunk and extremely tired... and he was. Mentally extremely drained and cognitively handicapped, Koty .. wasn't gonna be the same guy Dante already knew. At least they were still right outside the dorms. Not far to go to get to safety.

[Dante Russo]

"Yeah, man," Dante said with a cringe and pulled his hood down further over his eyes, "told you it was crazy." He pressed the worn fabric of his hood against his eyes with the palm of his hand, sealing out as much light as possible. The stabbing pain was beginning to make him nauseous.

"I'm really sorry," he muttered genuinely, "I didn't mean to do that to you." Even though the premonition had faded, and all Dante could remember were meaningless flashes of light and bursts of emotion, he generally seemed more inclined to be genuine in the minutes that followed. There was a lingering sense of.. of.. Dante wasn't sure what it was exactly, but it made him want to stop with his petty bullshit. It was the kind of feeling one gets after living every possible outcome of their life in a matter of minutes. He couldn't describe it, that would be like trying to explain colors to a blind man.

"So, I know you just lived a billion of my lives, and like two thirds of them were total shit-- but I'm gonna need you to help me right now." Dante was talking in the direction that he'd last seen Koty. It was somewhat difficult to hear as well. His head felt like it was being stabbed and squeezed and pounded against a wall. The sound of his own breathing was making everything rattle, so if Koty had moved at all, Dante wouldn't have heard it unless he spoke. "I can't open my eyes. I' getting a migraine, and my head is about to explode, so.. If you could get me someplace dark and quiet, I would so owe you."

[Koty Hura]

Had Koty not been so dizzy, tired, and disoriented, he may have internally commented on how surreal it was when Dante seemed to sincerely apologetic for something... But he was pretty damned dizzy, tired, and disoriented. No internal commentary! Heck, at this point, Koty didn't even really have an internal monologue. He was debilitatingly tired, and looked it, if Dante could see.

Instead, acting basically on instinct and following orders, Koty forced his eyes to stay open, stumbling slightly over to Dante and grabbing his wrist with a gloved hand. "C'mon.. m'room.. quiet.. bed.."

With more than a little effort, Koty would find the doors they'd walked out of not long ago and lead Dante through at a slow and far from steady pace. He kept having to support himself on doorframes and walls. Balance was a bit of a problem, even without the intense sleepiness. He was in some strange limbo between dreaming awake and survival mode, clawing desperately to consciousness and clutching Dante's hand. The trip up the stairs would be a tough one for Koty, but provided Dante managed to pull his own self up them, Koty would make it. After that it would be a very blurry trip down the hall and around the corner to dorm 501.. at which point Koty would lead Dante to his room, complete with Eisai poster just like he'd said, and hold himself up against the desk. The light was off and the curtain was drawn.. It was fairly dark in here but still light enough that one could see, given the light that found it's way around the curtain.

"Closet.. darkest.." And, rather delirious as he was, Koty continued in Japanese, "I meditate in there when it is noisy in the dorm".. but given that Dante didn't speak Japanese, he likely had no clue what Koty had said.. In truth the closet was mostly bare save for several outfits worth of clothing off to one side and a small shelf on the other with a mat between then. The shelf held a few odds and ends, a picture of Koty's mother, and a mala.. because meditating was hard and it helped to have that tactile reminder of what he was doing when he did decide to meditate.

"What.. what else?" As in 'what else do you need'.. but it was anybody's guess if Dante would understand what Koty had meant.. Or if he was even capable of decision making. Migraines were some debilitating things.

[Dante Russo]

By now, Dante was pretty decent at maneuvering half-blind. By himself, he could squint, pull his hood so low that he could only see the ground about two feet in front of him, and walk carefully. This method required stopping frequently to block out all the light for several minutes until the icepick in his skull withdrew a few inches. It was much slower by himself than it turned out to be with help, and his head was under so much pressure right now that he barely noticed this method involved Koty basically holding his hand.

The stairs were difficult. His head was so heavy he just wanted to lie down on the fucking steps and forget the whole thing, but Koty's steady tug on his hand reminded him that there was an actual room. A room that could be dark. And quiet. Thank god stairs had railings, because he leaned on it heavily.

After the stairs, everything was a blur until they got to Koty's room. Cautiously, he opened his eyes just a crack and lifted his hood slightly. It was dim. That was good. The light still felt like needles in his brain, but he could keep his eyes open for a little while at least.

Dante looked toward the closet when Koty spoke, and he went directly to it. He stepped inside just as Koty asked 'what else'. He paused. There was something else, he knew it..

"Water," he said after a moment, "we should.. water."

[Koty Hura]

How strange the two of them must have looked on their way back to the dorms.. Both struggling to simply stand, Koty barely able to pull Dante along at a snail's pace.. forgetting and remembering what he was doing and what his purpose was every other moment, Dante hardly able to see at all, his hood pulled down, head punishing him for ever having woken up today.. They must have looked extremely strange, very pathetic, or possibly even a little cute, sharing their stuggles as they had been.

No matter. The room had been gotten to with no major detours or malfunctions, and Dante had found the quietest place in the boys dorms.. Koty's closet. The clothing there did a good job of dampening noise, and the mat kept it at least somewhat comfortable. It was dark and cool and very neutral and unintrusive.. and most importantly it was safe.

Koty's room was impeccably clean.. No dust, nothing strewn about.. The decor was about two notches from spartan, what with the little decorations here and there, the Japanese flag hung next to his bed (it had been a gift to him from his mother's best friend) and the fact that the room had definitely been painted. Inside the closet was a matte grey, excellent for soaking up light, and the room itself was a calming blue with navy trim. It matched Koty's dark wooden desk, bed, and dresser quite well.

Regardless of all that, though, Dante wanted water. It was pretty fortunate that Koty kept water in his room.. because the chances that he could make it to the cafeteria and back were.. slim. He nodded, walking sluggishly over to the desk and opening the bottom drawer. A few seconds later he would crawl most of the way to Dante, sliding the bottle across the floor toward him before collapsing onto the floor himself.. "Ithing.. Icn.." He was silent for several moments, breathing heavily.. "Jus.. wagemeup.. 'f.. trouble.."

And with no further drama whatsoever, Koty passed the hell out right there on the floor, sprawled out next to his bed.. completely exhausted.

[Dante Russo]

Dante sank to the floor as Koty crawled back with a bottle of water. The dim lighting was starting to be too much already. He pulled the door most of the way closed, only reaching a hand out to take the bottle of water rolling across the floor.

"Thanks," he mumbled, closing the door with a sigh. Much better. He could still feel the migraine, but it was bearable in Koty's closet. Especially if he turned away from cracks around the doorframe.

For a while he just sat, slowly sipping his water. Reflecting. Today was kind of messed up. It was hard to make sense of it all. It was hard to know how to feel about it. It was.. weird. Just weird. And he was still in that after-haze of unreal-ness. As though he weren't quite convinced that he wasn't dreaming. Like he'd been here before. For a while after the visions, the sensation of deja vu was strong and constant. Everything that happened came with a feeling of well of course.

After an undetermined amount of time, Dante drifted off. He was propped up in a corner, his head behind some hanging cloths, legs stretched as far as they could be. He was short, but he still had to fold himself up to fit in Koty's closet.

He had strange dreams, as was usual when he had a migraine. Or maybe it was because of the premonition. It was all swirling colors, and faces, and voices, and none of it made any sense. The whole thing was very unsetteling. He felt like he was falling, turning over and over, tumbling past his own subconscious. The dream faded in and out with his cycles of REM, growing more and more twisted with each one until finally-- "Dante you piece of shit, come HERE!" An overpowering, demonic voice made him spin around. Rebecca loomed over him, her face attached to a body that swirled like smoke and fire. Her eyes were wide, crazed, and she opened her massive jaws, swooping down like a bird of prey to swallow him up.

Dante jerked awake, flailing wildly and knocking several things over inside the closet. The sound of his own commotion startled him, and he froze. Breathing hard. Heart racing. His gaze darted around the inside of Koty's closet, eyes fully adjusted to the darkness. He moved to get up, a few items falling off of him and to the floor in the process. Slowly he opened the closet door and crept out.

Koty was still asleep on the floor, and Dante went quietly to the window. He pulled back the curtain and peered outside. The sun was going down. He must have been asleep for a while. The migraine was waining. He could still feel it prickling gently behind his eyes in the light, but it wasn't so bad anymore. He tiptoed deftly towards Koty's bedroom door, only to find his sleeping form blocking the way. Dante chewed his bottom lip, then decided to try carefully moving him out of the way. Without touching any part of his skin, Dante gingerly lifted Koty's foot off the floor and slowly moved it aside, trying not to wake him up.

[Koty Hura]

Koty was dead asleep, even through the noise and commotion when Dante woke from his nightmare. He didn't shift, didn't change his breathing, nothing. It was like he was dead if not for the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. He looked so peaceful.. face completely neutral. Perhaps 'content' wasn't the right word, but.. Koty was definitely in a deep, deep sleep.

He had lived alone for some time now. Since his mother died, in fact. He had rarely stayed with any friends, he had no relatives.. The most he'd slept away from home was when he'd exhausted himself training with Meian-sensei at Eisai.. and Vincent had learned quickly to keep his distance and never to touch Koty while he was asleep. Perhaps it was Vincent's fault that Koty had such ridiculous skills at defense when he wasn't fully conscious, perhaps it was one of a hundred other people over the course of the years since he'd manifested, but noone woke Koty up by touching him more than once. Not even the ex-military trainer..

Dante was about to find out why. See, while Koty slept, his mind had been pouring over what remained of the massive amount of information that was left after his initial purge of completely outlandish possibilities. He'd scoured over so many possibilities of Dante killing himself that he was becoming immune to the thought, and had moved on to situations in which Dante screwed up the lives of everyone he'd ever met.. The one that had been going through Koty's mind at the time of the commotion had involved Dante getting completely strung out behind the wheel of a car and crashing into a building.. When he's pulled the curtains back, it had been one involving mass arson, and as Dante started to try to move Koty's legs out of the way of the door, the dream was one in which Dante had already done something to seriously injure Koty, and was trying to push him off a cliff in order to avoid the consequences...

And that was what woke Koty up. The thought of Dante trying to shove him off a cliff into oblivion because he'd somehow caused Koty serious harm and was deathly afraid of the consequences. Suffice it so say that Koty did not awake in a good mood, or in one that was going to have him taking in his surroundings before he acted.

In a flash, Koty shoved to the side, slinging his leg out to knock Dante's feet out from under him, and he used that momentum to carry his upper body around so that he could reach beneath his mattress. The reaching turned smoothly into a chokeslam in which Koty would literally take Dante by the throat (hands still gloved) and slam his ass right down to the floor and hold him there. And not gently. Before Dante's eyes, the hand that had disappeared beneath the mattress made several quick motions, and a stainless steel balisong flipped into it's open position and was aimed directly at Dante's neck just above Koty's hand.. In the same movement, Koty had slid around to be straddling Dante's torso. He wasn't going anywhere.

Koty looked so angry. Murderous. Like someone who had been trapped in ia cell for decades for a crime he didn't commit and had just gotten hold of the person who had put him there... His nostrils flared, his eyebrows furrowed, his jaw clenched, his breathing heavy and slow...

And he blinked, glancing around for anyone else in the room.. recognizing where he was. He blinked several more times, reaching up with his blade wielding arm to rub at his eyes with the back of his wrist, face changing quickly to one of confusion and shock, breathing picking up into a bit of a panic... and he looked back down again, to his hand, to Dante's face, to his knife... and jerked his hand away from Dante's throat, dropping the knife to the side out of reach of either of them.

"D-dante.. I.. I am sorry.." His eyes continued to dart around the room sporadically, his hand was shaking.. "I had.. n-no intention to.." At that point he realized he was still straddling Dante and scrambled backward, slamming into the door to his dorm and looking a bit horrified. "T-this was an accident, Dante, I swear to you."

At this point, Koty was trying to catch his breath and make sense of everything racing through his head. Instincts that weren't his on top of dreams that weren't his on top of a person in his room that wasn't him and damn near killing the poor kid.. Koty might need a second. Convenient, cause Dante might need a second as well.

[Dante Russo]

Needless to say, Dante was startled. Maybe startled was an understatement. Before he could even react, he was on the ground. Koty's hand around his throat. Knife against his flesh. Dante stared, wide eyed, up at Koty. Not breathing. In his still-groggy state, Koty looked like Rebecca. Straddling him. Choking him. Pinning him down. Anger burning like hot coals in her glare.

It had been a long time since he'd had to wake that particular sleeping dragon, but he fell easily back into the mindset. She often attacked when woken, and the best thing to do was take it until she finally dragged her ass out of the bedroom. Hide for a minute. Swallow the hate. Follow her out with a smile, and take her apology. Maintaining anger at her behavior only perpetuated it. If she continued with aggression, apologize and take fault. In his current position, struggling was dangerous.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, Rebecca, don't--"

Then the knife was away from his throat. Koty was rubbing his ryes, and Dante blinked. Not Rebecca. A short breath passed his lips. Koty withdrew his hand next, and dropped his knife, and started stuttering out apologies. Dante's stomach turned, but he stayed still. Watching cautiously.

It was too familiar, and not in a deja vu sort of way. She did that too often. Attack and apologize. "I didn't mean it! I swear, Dante! Please! I love you! I'm so sorry-- I didn't know what I was doing!" He took her apologies, and felt guilty for the resentment he felt. He knew what she meant. He beat up his own friends in fits of anger that they didn't deserve, not fully in charge of himself and unable to remember clearly exactly what he'd done afterward. He couldn't fault her for a trait they shared, but he hated her for it. He rarely tried to apologize for his violence like that. At least he fucking owned up to it.

Then Koty unpinned him, and Dante mirrored his backwards scrambling. He ran into the bed, and clawed his way over and to the other side of it with amazing speed. He stood, breathing hard, watching Koty in a state of hyper vigilance. His eyes were so wide that Koty could have seen white all the way around his irises if he was looking.

"Okay, just.. calm down," Dante said, raising his hands slowly. Palms out. His voice was startling soft. It didn't match his demeanor at all. Koty wasn't aggressing anymore, but at this point dante didn't know what to expect. He was back in Rebecca-mode. Calm the beast. Speak softly. Be submissive, but firm. Be forgiving. "Everything's alright," he continued, actually pronouncing the word correctly this time instead of talking like a stupid street kid.