pushtheboundaries: (face down on the bathroom floor)
Robert Callaghan // ʏ๏кคเ ([personal profile] pushtheboundaries) wrote in [community profile] san_fransokyo2014-11-27 08:28 pm

and i'm feeling like a ghost (openish?)

An overcast sunset. Perhaps not the best time to visit San Fransokyo's burial grounds, but it was a time when there were few if any visitors. Which meant it was at least a good time for someone still dead in a sense, even if his original 'death' had been revealed for the falsehood it was.

They hadn't yet removed his memorial, though. It was starting to run down from time, but it was fitting that it still remained in place.

He certainly didn't feel alive.

Robert Callaghan gazed down at the plaque with an unhappy expression. It wasn't so much the fact that it was present as how useless it all felt. Pointless. Abigail's, at least, had held some actual meaning...even if it, too, paid homage to a soul who wasn't actually lost.

And wasn't that a thought that brought mixed feelings. He shook his head and turned away, the few microbots with him pressing a bit deeper in to the back of his neck. He reached up to push away at them irritably, wholly unsurprising when their response was to skitter on to his hand and up his loose sleeve.

He was getting used to them, at least, and the thought necessary to keep the mass away.
anewangle: (what would mom and dad say?)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-11-28 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
Tadashi wasn't sure why he'd come here. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? That had to be part of what drew him in, at least. After all, it wasn't every day a guy could take a trip out to see his own grave

Not that he'd left the house that day intending to end up in the cemetery. Not at all. There were errands to run, and with Hiro occupied with homework (and whatever side projects the boy eventually would end up using to distract himself from said homework), it had seemed like the perfect time to get those errands done. Gas up his scooter, pick up a few parts he'd had on order, maybe swing by the grocery store for the few odds and ends he knew Aunt Cass had forgotten during her last shopping trip. It should've been a fairly simple excursion, and it was... until he drove by the graveyard.

It hadn't been hard to find. A headstone with his name on it. Tadashi Hamada carved clean and clear into the stone. Two more Hamadas settled to the right, though their stones were showing some wear. Not surprising after more than ten years. He could still remember the day they'd been brand new. Vivid memories of sunny day, juxtaposed by the cluster of black-clad mourners, his hand held tight in the grip of a child too young to really understand what was happening.

Tadashi shook his head, removing his hat and drawing in a less than steady breath before he forced himself to focus on what he'd come to see. Curiosity was certainly a factor in his presence here, but there had to be something else. Some sort of confirmation, maybe, but of what? He didn't really remember the explosion, but he had no reason to doubt what he'd been told. It made perfect sense. An inferno like that in a building with so much unstable tech and so many volatile chemicals... of course there was an explosion. There probably hadn't been much left afterward. Not of the building, and certainly not of. Not of him...

Whatever the reason, he shouldn't have come here. Tadashi turned away abruptly, tearing his eyes from that fresh name and offering the two beside it a short prayer before making a hasty trek back to the main path. Eyes down, shoulders tight, and his hat still clutched tightly in one hand, he almost didn't notice the only other soul in the cemetery with him. It wasn't until he'd already taken several steps past the older man that the recognition registered, and it was with some hesitation that he stopped, turning slowly for a second look.

... Oh.
Edited 2014-11-28 05:56 (UTC)
anewangle: (unbelievable)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-11-29 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
He probably should just continue on. Just make for the exit, climb on his scooter, and take a ride to properly compose himself before heading home. After all, a confrontation isn't why he came out here. Robert's made it perfectly clear that he doesn't appreciate Tadashi's attempts to intervene. Hell, he'd rather break into their home than ask either Hamada brother for help, leaving so many people exposed to the possible dangers of the microbots, and to be perfectly honest? Tadashi's not feeling particularly optimistic at the moment.

And yet...

Tadashi stares at Callaghan for a few long moments, expression oddly strained, before he looks away again, relaxing the grip on his hat and lifting it so that he can smooth out the wrinkles in it with his free hand.

"... It's strange, isn't it?"
anewangle: (what would mom and dad say?)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-11-29 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't really remember... what happened."

Tadashi fingers the brim of his hat, picking absently at areas where the fabric has worn thin and the stiffer material underneath shows through. He remembers heat. Heat and fear and a cushion of hot air right before a nauseating sense of displacement dropped him into his current situation. A dead man living again, trying to pick back up where he hadn't even realized he'd left off.

"It's different. Seeing evidence, I mean."

He glances briefly in the direction of the Hamada graves before focusing down on his hat again. None of it seemed like it really could've happened, but here they were. Here he was. And there he was.

If only it really was a dream.
anewangle: (unbelievable)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-11-29 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
The subject change jolts Tadashi out of his morbid thoughts, and he frowns down at the ground as he works over the memory in his mind. He and Hiro have been over the bare bones if it all once or twice, but neither felt terribly motivated to explore the subject too far. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all. Krei Tech was the easy assumption to make, but no one they'd managed to get into contact with had been particularly forthcoming.

"... I ran into the building. I couldn't see much and it was hard to breathe... I started to panic. Then there was weird sensation." He rests one hand in the center of his chest, fingers curled to form a loose fist. It hadn't been pain, but as unsettling as it had been, pain might've been better. A sense of something unnatural, something wrong.

"I thought I was going to be sick, and then I was just... outside. Except it was daylight."

And months had passed, but that part's obvious enough. Tadashi finally looks up at Callaghan again.

"I didn't know what'd happened until Hiro told me." After a very understandable fit of near hysterics, of course.
anewangle: (use that big brain)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-11-29 05:40 am (UTC)(link)
Tadashi's a man of science, but he's always kept himself open to the alternatives. Indulged in them or let them pass with no worries about direct evidence or mystical consequences, because really... who could know for sure? Why fear the unknown when you can take comfort in possibilities instead?

That said, things would probably be easier if he'd seen something a little more stereotypical. A bright light, maybe a choir of angels... but no. Just fire followed by sudden sunlight.

He shakes his head. Once of the first things he'd done after the fact was check himself over for injuries. For some kind of evidence of the fire that was so close in his memory, but there hadn't been so much as a singe on his clothing. It was like...

"It was like nothing happened."
anewangle: (going for a huggable kind of thing)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-03 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
"We did approach Krei Tech, but no one we've managed to talk to has been particularly helpful."

Tadashi finally looks back up at Callaghan again, wearing a strained, false sort of smile that doesn't belong anywhere near his face.

"I'm not sure I really want to press my luck anyway..."

Whatever happened, however it happened, should he really be doing anything other than being grateful for his second chance? There'll always be that natural curiosity, of course. A scientist's curiosity, but with the knowledge of what had happened to him, along with what his death had driven his family and friends to do...

What right does he have to analyze this gift?
anewangle: (we'll make this work)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-03 08:00 am (UTC)(link)
That false smile fades, but the little frown that follows probably isn't much better. It's still so easy to fall into the student role to Callaghan's teacher, and like any dedicated student, he can sense the displeasure hidden beneath that acceptance. That resignation. Maybe it's not specifically directed at him, but it's definitely there.

A small part of his mind nags at him, reminding the rest of him that he doesn't have to feel this way. Not for this man who still seems so unwilling to try and fix the mistakes he's committed. Callaghan isn't Tadashi's professor anymore. Popular opinion would probably insist that he shouldn't be Tadashi's anything, and yet...

("And yet" seems to be a running theme with Tadashi at this point.)

He nods again, a new smile forming that's much closer to his normal fair, if not a bit chagrined. No need to mention the lies he'd had to tell the school board to get himself readmitted, or the stares he gets from certain lab mates who aren't in the know. Or the fact that he hasn't managed to make a single major improvement to Baymax since his return.

"Uh... yeah. I missed a lot, though. I've got some catching up to do."
anewangle: (part of the team)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-04 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Just because Tadashi's currently alive and well doesn't mean that a mistake wasn't made. It doesn't make the suffering that everyone else went through invalid. Callaghan's pain doesn't void the pain of others.

He chuckles a bit, absently bending the brim of his hat this way and that as tries to keep things light.

"I've had some things to take care of at home."

Slipping back into life with Hiro and Aunt Cass, for one. Convincing Hiro to let his big brother out of his sight once in a while, for another. Then came convincing the necessary organizations that he was who he said he was...

What a mess.
anewangle: (unbelievable)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-04 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
That's a new level of awkward that Tadashi didn't know they were capable of. This coming from one of two dead men who happened to choose today to visit their own graves.

He almost flinches and looks away again. His hands are itching to settle that hat back in its rightful place on his head, but he resists the urge. It doesn't feel right while they're still standing among graves, empty or not.

"Of course. They have a lot on their plates, too, though."

School, families, part-time superhero work... He can't expect them to be there all the time, and he doesn't. They certainly do seem to try, though. Tadashi looks back up before the awkward silence can sneak back in again.

"... What about you?"
anewangle: (unbelievable)

don't even think about it old man

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-05 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
Too many false smiles with no point behind them. It's not as if the both of them can't tell when the other is putting up a front. When tender subjects are being avoided or outright ignored.

Nothing special. Tadashi doesn't have to know particulars to know he's being brushed off. It's not unexpected, of course. When will he learn to just stop asking?

"Are things still... volatile?"

On the bad side of town, that is. Among those disgusting people that Tadashi knows Robert must be associating with in some way in order to continue on while keeping such a low profile.
anewangle: (let's get out of here)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-07 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
They're both trying to protect themselves, the difference between them being that Tadashi is still willing to cast that protection aside in favor of doing what he thinks is best for someone else. Even if that someone else wants nothing to do with it.

"You're being careful, aren't you?"

Because he has to ask. And imagining trying to survive among that crowd himself is just laughable. Even for the professor Tadashi had once known, it just doesn't seem to fit.
anewangle: (what were you thinking?!)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-07 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
The incredibly intimidating army of microbots might also be a factor in his successful survival, at least on the physical end of things. Tadashi's still remembers what it was like to be tossed around by those things, and how lucky he was that Robert was there to help rather than harm.

That tone has him back to frowning, but this time right at Robert rather than at the ground.

"Is it really so wrong to be worried?"
anewangle: (what were you thinking?!)

[personal profile] anewangle 2014-12-07 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
Tadashi blinks, lines forming between his eyebrows as they furrow. That wasn't what he'd meant...

It's a valid concern, though, the things Callaghan might do. He's still far from being able to put the past behind him. Far from being able move on and live a life even close to the one he's already thrown away. Still too reliant on anger and lies as he pushes through each day. Still too quick to lash out, replaying hurt with hurt...

This is the same man that Tadashi caught sharing space with his bleeding brother after having broken into their home, after all. He has every right to be to be wary, and he is... but the slightly hurt expression that sneaks onto his face tells of more that simple suspicion.

"I meant worried about you."

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*_*

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we can hope

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he would be so strangely proud

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"may have"? :|

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