Ooo, that sounds terrifying honestly, lmao

But I'm very excited

Soooo

I, of course, have been thinking a lot about Reconnecting With The Past

Because I'm crazy and love everything you write

And because you asked about Garvin when you were writing the first bit, so obviously my brain keeps thinking about it

Not sure if this changes anything in Part 2 or not, but I have more to tell you about Garvin's behavior with the news and all-

The most important thing being that he would so be trying to delay himself meeting her as much/long as possible. Like. He's finding every excuse to not meet her. 'He forgot that he was supposed to and was hanging out with Aries' 'Same thing but with Devery' 'Clio wanted help with something'

Literally just would be trying so hard not to meet her.

(This gets worse if the first meeting between Akira and her goes well)

Ooo, interesting!

And you're too sweet, lol

That definitely makes sense

And actually works well for what I've got already I think since Akira, Nico, and I'm assuming also Revan have already clocked that this whole thing won't be great for Garvin... Ingall's struggling with his own shit right now after seeing Akira's first breakdown-

But how I've got it set up at the moment is it's implied that Revan requested Garvin stay home to help out Ingall and make sure he doesn't spiral too much again or help/get help if he does, it's never mentioned to Garvin that there's a secondary reason but there definitely is one, haha

I will say, Romilly probably won't be around much for at least a while, which is mostly because of how Akira processes everything. Like, she's not a terrible person (though she's not really the best either, I honestly wouldn't say she's a great person for Kira to have around them constantly because of how... uh... emotional and how little of a filter she has when it comes to them. She's gonna very much be trying to make up for her lack of parenting for the first year or so and it just comes off as controlling and kinda nosey since, you know, Akira's not a child anymore.), but everything is very sudden and Akira kinda has to re-process childhood trauma because her coming back is a trigger.

Actually, there's probably gonna be several Akira angst short stories that take place after Reconnecting With The Past because Kira is so very conservative with their emotions and avoid ever discussing literally anything from their past with their partners because "they all have too much of their own shit goin' on" and "I'm supposed ta be the strong an' dependable one, not fall 'part." and so on, and they've gotten really good at repressing everything which is why everyone is kinda shocked and unsure how to react in the first part, they've simply never seen it from Akira before. But after Romilly comes back, all those surpressed feelings come back and will result in Aki having to actually work through things to stay functional, so that'll be fun-

Lmao

The funniest thing is actually that Garvin would've been completely fine had it happened before the first time he ever dyes his hair.

But uh, yeah. Revan's definitely already clocked it. How bad exactly, not so much. But Garvin in general is tricky with knowing exactly how bad something's going to go with him. Garvin sticking behind to help Ingall is definitely a reason he can get behind. But, yeah. If he hears the first meeting went well, he's going to be so afraid of meeting her. Like. He is taking any excuse to not meet her. She's coming over? Oops, looks like they're out of Ritz crackers, he's gotta go get them for uh... Five or more hours. Like. He is outta there.

I feel like Garvin's not really shocked by Akira's reaction and all, just more like... He doesn't really know what to do with anyone when they're not doing too well. He knows what he usually does isn't really, like, applicable for the situation so... He's out of ideas.

Fair

Yeahhh, well, I'm not sure if the first meeting can be considered 'good' or not, actually, I'll leave that for you to decide, haha

What I will say is that; One, Romilly says some good stuff and some... questionable things, but a lot of that can be attributed to her just not knowing Akira well enough and she's been basically isolated from society for long enought to not quite know what she's actually okay to question and what's not great to mention, lol. Two, she does apologize, so at least there's that-

And three, which is actually probably the biggest indicator, or, at least it will be for Ingall when he hears about it all... Nico is not a fan of Romilly. Like, at all. Similar to Graci at first, actually, but a little more hesitant and less willing to be overly kind to her. They're civil, but not happy, soooo, haha

Yeah, that makes sense

I feel like Nico and Rev are gonna have to be a lot of the support in this situation since Ingall also won't be handling it well, even though he tries, lmao

But, I mean, Star Trek/Star Wars and cuddles are always a good option! XD

I have a feeling that Garvin is going to be incredibly confused. He probably won't ask too many questions though. He's also probably not going to go off of how Nico or Revan react to her though. Not their estranged mom, after all. So. He's going to be figuring out if he needs to be terrified or not based off of Akira. If Akira says anything nice or good about her, he's probably going to be terrified of meeting her.

Garvin probably would offer cuddles, silently and very much not wanting to make anything worse. He also probably wouldn't suggest binge watching anything. If Akira suggests it, he's totally down for it. But, uh. He's gonna be feeling out of place, and most of his energy is going to go towards hiding that. Which means some of the progress he's made gets pushed back. Which means suggesting things that'd help him too becomes less likely.

So fair, lmao

Akira is also confused. For so many reasons. Honestly, they don't know what the fuck they're thinking, so good luck Garvin XD

Akira will take it, haha

They may suggest watching something, but it depends

It's kinda weird because, in a way, Akira will kind of sort of be leaning on Garvin/requesting his attention the most which is unintentional, but still happens because of the idea that Garvin's the only one who might understand a sliver of what's happening in their head right now, haha

That said, Revan and Nico will probably actually help the most

And poor Ingall seriously need a stress-free day out or something, I would say he could go stay with Sol, but I don't think that would help his OCD much, lmao

Garvin's going to try and be helpful. But he really has no clue what he's doing when a parent wants to reach out and actually be a good parent. An abusive parent? Easy to deal with. Point him in their direction and he will punch the abusive parent in the face. A parent that's actually trying to grow from mistakes? Yeahhhhh, he's clueless.

He's trying not to get too stuck in his head. There's a whole lot of ways his mind is wanting to take the news. So, uh, yeah. He's going to be pushing all of it back as much as possible in order to help Akira. Does mean he's trying to not take up as much space as he usually does, only as much as Akira needs him to. Or as much as he thinks Akira needs him to. Especially if Akira's basically trying to rely on him. He'll basically just exist near/next to/around Akira. Basically hovering while also trying to not hover. Merlin is going to have his work cut out for him lmao

Ingall can take Merlin out for a stress free day. Or he could try staying with Devery. His place isn't too terrible. He keeps it clean and it's usually calm. And, as we know, he does not mind having people crash at his place for any length of time.

Yeah, so fair honestly. Akira won't explicitly ask for help from anyone, they're very much going to try to ignore it all until it goes away or until the pain is lessened enough to sort of deal with, or until they break (which is so much more likely, lmao). If anything, they might go stay with Everett, Leon, and Kumi for a night or two. Definitely ask to talk to Everett at least, haha

But really Garvin just existing around them is enough for the most part, they honestly just don't want to be alone

And Ingall would probably deny taking Merlin just because what if Garvin needs him, or someone else needs him? He'd rather not take that away lol

Though staying with Devery honestly may not be a bad option. He really just needs a day where he can decompress and work out his own feelings without being more stressed by even more stressed out partners XD

That seems fair, yeah. I was going to say that once Akira's staying with someone else for a couple days that Garvin would take the chance to break but honestly- He'd probably just fucking double down.

Hopefully the type of existing Garvin's doing around them is good enough. Since... It's mostly just literally existing. Like. He is not paying attention to himself at all. He busy. His focus be split between Akira and pretending that none of what's going on bothers him at all.

Merlin definitely has his work cut out for him. The poor service dog. (Which is a whole other thing, because Garvin is going to be so upset every time Merlin does anything for him. For anyone else? Good job Merlin. Him though? Nahhh, Merlin, there's better people to be helping. Go help someone else.)

Yeahhh. The one caveat with Ingall staying with Devery is that Devery would 100% require Ingall to not tell Garvin that his apartment is where he's staying. For, uh, reasons Devery and Garvin would of course not share.