raisetheearth | {Joint Video}

"Eeeeeew," Misa squeals, camera zooming in on what appears to be some sort of green slime clinging to the side of a house. Despite her obvious disgust, there is a series of clicking noises as she takes pictures of it from various angles. "It's so gross!! Is anyone else seeing these? What is it?"

"I wonder what happens if you touch it?" Comes Tony's voice from just off camera, as a pebble is tossed in the blob's general direction. It's not absorbed into it, so he figures that means it's totally safe enough to poke right?

"Stopit!!" Misa shrieks, video abruptly zooming out as she jumps away from the thing. The pebble falls to the ground harmlessly enough, but that does not comfort her much. The camera shifts, and she can be seen shaking a chastising finger in Tony's face. "We have no idea what it is, don't touch it!"

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" Famous last words, someone make sure that goes on his grave stone. "Where's your sense of adventure? I'm gonna touch it." Chastising only seems to have made him more inclined to do the thing that he's being told not to do.

"It could eat your hand- no nonostop!" Misa grabs Tony's arm and attempts to drag him away from the thing, but her efforts don't even slow him down. The video feed now shows his hand moving toward the slimy globule, with sounds of a one-sided struggle in the background.

"It's a blob it's not like it's got teeth," Clearly Tony had never played a table top RPG. And no, the dragging was less than effective. Instead that just meant Misa was pulled along with him while he reached out to experimentally poke the thing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He returns the glare with a pointed look of his own, though it's sans ire. Lazarus, as a rule, tends to be pretty good at keeping a cap on his kneejerk emotional reactions. He's no robot, but sometimes in contrast with Misa, he could pass for at least a realistic android, just like he's a regular hothead at times when compared with Nathan.

"Our relationship is largely defined by my encouraging him," he mumbles, fully aware that it's beside the point. "...but I'm serious. Touching them turns them into things that are presumably from where our Others came from."

"But," Misa protests, without anything to follow it. She looks down at the slime again, wary though curious. "Maybe that's... it should be private. What did you get?"

He quirks a brow... but manages not to say like the tattoo? Somehow, he's managed not to bring that up yet. Maybe a part of him would rather not know, even though he dedicates a lot of time to wondering about it.

"If we're sharing, it's all or nothing," he says with a one-shouldered shrug. "We respect privacy, or we combine our knowledge. Your choice."

"It's not all or nothing," Misa protests, giving him a reproachful look. "We can have our privacy and still share some things."

"I mean where echoes are concerned," Lazarus says. "It's on a different level than leaving the door open when you're brushing your teeth, wouldn't you say? It can help both of us to know what's happening with our Others and how they're influencing our lives."

Confusion gives way to setting her jaw as it hits Misa what he is talking about. So that's it. He's calling her lie.

When they were first intimate, the fact that she had told him she echoed back a tattoo in an intimate place hadn't occurred to her at all; it was only later that she realized he now knew for certain that wasn't true. But he hadn't said anything, and she let herself believe that maybe he had forgotten about it just as she did.

Misa knew better, but wouldn't things be nicer if they both ignored it?

"Even lovers are allowed to have a couple secrets," she mutters stiffly. This is not a conversation she wants to have now. It's not a conversation she wants to have ever, but especially not with an audience.

They do have an audience, here, which makes it feel that much more like it's happening on the edge of a knife. But he is always thinking, considering and noticing details, and the tattoo's absence had been distracting.

Not quite enough to interfere with the intimacy they did end up sharing, that time and others, but certainly enough to be significant and stick with him.

"Of course," he agrees quickly. "I know that I'm happier keeping certain things to myself, but if your Other was in love with a man who wanted to kill me, doesn't it make sense that I'd be interested in what you're getting back? I've never hidden the contents of my pulses from you, in the interest of informing and protecting us both."

"My Other was in love with a man who may have wanted to kill L," she corrects, and the rest of what he said goes thoroughly ignored. "L tortured my Other, a man like that probably had lots of people who wanted to kill him. So let's not confuse ourselves with those people, huh? You are not L."

The correction is actually a very fair one that Lazarus can't immediately argue with; he's guilty of this, sometimes, blurring the line between himself and his other. After around 50 echoes, it's understandable that it happens, but still not kind of unwieldy in an argument based on facts or feelings.

"And you're not Misa, at least not that Misa. So there's no reason to hide," he says. "Can I ask what you're afraid of if I do see it? The worst case scenario?"

"The only thing I'm afraid of is any of us turning into bad people," she answers tersely, turning away from him. "Touch it if you want, I don't care."

It's something that he's afraid of too, and he doesn't need to say it to make it clear.

But he does reach out toward a glob of goo.

"OK," he says, stroking fingertips over it. "I'm not afraid."

A cupcake falls harmlessly to the ground.

Misa glances back, eyes zeroing in on the cupcake, before staring ahead again.

"Don't eat that," she advises, before beginning to walk away.

He watches her go, torn between staying behind after having made his point and chasing after her to apologize.

I've done nothing wrong. She's sulking; let her.

He opts to stay, picking up the cupcake and taking it inside to throw away.

{Joint Video}

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