beboots

Okay, what has this slacker been doing that's constructive in the last month, eh? What, bettering her comprehension of the French language and culture? Psshaw, what use is that? Where's the fanfiction? D:<

Don't worry, I didn't spend the entire month lazing about and exploring Europe. I did indeed write some fic ideas down... just not Rise of the Jinchuuriki. D: Also, I've been digging through my saved files, and in keeping with the promise that I made myself (backing up my writing and precious documents however I can), I've decided to post a few (imcomplete) fics here, for your enjoyment. Keep in mind, many of these are barely a step above point-form writing. Any comments and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Oh, and (***) indicates missing text that has yet to be written.

Untitled Trigun one-shot

It had all begun with one ill-placed word that lead to a rain of bullets that managed to hit their mark. The culprit, and the victim, in this case, was none other than Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon. When was it ever anybody else in such situations?

Luckily, he had been accompanied by the itinerant priest Nicholas Wolfwood and Vash’s two faithful Insurance girls, Meryl and Milly. The shortest of the group, Meryl, was none too happy that they were being chased out of the first town that they had run across in several days without even staying a single night in a nice hotel (and thus eschewing the possibility of the luxury of a shower).

As they fled the settlement (and the citizens of said settlement, who were throwing rocks and even the occasional bullet) Meryl kept up a steady berating speech about the merits of keeping one’s thoughts to oneself, and the wisdom of not making gun-wielding hotel owners angry and so forth.

Unusually, Vash was silent, but Meryl chalked that up to the fact that they were running exceedingly quickly and thus had no time to talk.

That is until Vash stumbled and fell, with absolutely no warning.

“Mr. Vash!” Milly cried, the first to grab him as he fell.

Wolfwood, too, was right there. “Shit, Spikey, why didn’t you say you were hit?” It was true – the red material of the Typhoon’s coat hid the colour of blood surprisingly well. From what Meryl could tell, it hid some sort of abdominal wound.

“Didn’t… have… time…” Vash gasped out, pain obvious on his facial features.

Meryl felt just a little bit contrite at that, but dismissed the thought because, really, it was the blond idiot’s fault he was hurt in the first place.

Without being prompted, Wolfwood slung Vash’s right arm over his shoulders and heaved the injured man upright. The latter gave a subdued wince as he did so, but remained silent through sheer force of will. “Right then, Spikey, girls; we’ve got to get some sort of distance between us and that town. I doubt that any hospital of theirs is going to be an option right now, am I right?” Vash shook his head in a short, jerky motion. “Onwards, then.”

***

They managed to make camp several iles out of town, in the shade of one of the sand dunes. After only a few minutes of being helped to walk by the priest, it had become increasingly obvious that Vash was incapable of walking, even with aid. Unsurprising, considering the nature of his injuries. Milly had ended up having to carry him, bridal style, as they continued to flee the angry gun-toting men from the village.

The priest had managed to create a small campfire to help stave off the crippling cold of the desert at night.

As darkness fell, so did Vash’s condition deteriorate. He was placed nearest to the fire, and it was by firelight that Wolfwood dressed the man’s gunshot wound with the ease of practice. Meryl hadn’t watched, but Milly had had to hold the blond man down as they removed the one bullet that had remained lodged in his flesh. Meryl didn’t like the sounds that she had heard, nor the suspiciously metallic smell on the air.

Right now, though, Vash appeared to be sleeping, fitfully, sitting propped up against Milly’s side by the campfire. It was important that he be kept warm. The larger insurance girl had by now fallen asleep, only into a light doze, but Meryl was incapable of doing so. Neither, it seemed, was Wolfwood. Occasionally, Vash would wake with a start, wince, and blink blearily around with far-away eyes glazed with pain. For Vash, who had enough scars to leave no part of his body unmarked, and who obviously had experience with pain to actually show that he was hurting meant that it was bad. Meryl suspected that the man had a fever, but she wasn’t about to check herself. She told herself that it had nothing to do with guilt, and everything to do with practicality. She knew nothing of gunshot wound treatment and accompanying illnesses.

The five moons were all in the sky, indicating that it was the dead of night, when Vash woke once again. This time, though, he spoke. It was in an odd, harsh whisper: “Get out of my head.”

This, of course, woke Milly up, who had only been sleeping lightly in any case. “What did you say, Mr. Vash?” She asked, politely as always.

But he didn’t appear to be listening to her. He was clutching at his head with his real hand, eyes scrunched, whispering several times, “Get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head…”

“Spikey, are you okay?” Wolfwood voiced his concern, which Meryl silently seconded.

At these words, Vash opened his eyes. They were too bright, brighter than one would expect from just fever. “He’s coming. We have to leave.” He struggled to get to his feet, and would have fallen over had Milly not reached out to steady him.

“Who’s coming, Mr. Vash?”

“He is. He’s coming,” Vash insisted, quite clearly despite the delirious way he looked. He put his hand back to his head. “I know he is.”

“Mr. Vash, we can’t move now. Where would we go?” Meryl told him, pragmatically.

Vash shook his head in response. “We have to go. We have to. If he finds us, we’ll all be dead. He’s coming, I know he is.”

“Who is ‘he’?” Meryl asked, trying to mask her annoyance. “No-one knows that we’re out here. No-one can see the fire. We’re safe, don’t worry about it.”

Vash just shook his head again. “No, no. He knows. I know he knows, and he knows I know. I know. We’ve got to go. Now. Or he’ll find us.”

Wolfwood, who had been silent thus far, finally stood. “I think we should listen to Spikey.”

“What, you too, Mr. Priest?” Meryl scoffed. “He’s clearly delirious. If we move him, he’ll only get worse. And there’s nowhere to go, at any rate.”

“If he’s this shook up about it, I think we should leave,” The priest repeated, picking up the Punisher.

“What? Did you hear any of what I just said?”

“Wolfwood knows who he is, and that’s why he agrees with me,” Vash said, suddenly, making another attempt at getting up, this time supported by Wolfwood. “He’s scared too.”

Funny, because now that Vash mentioned it, the priest did look a little bit more pale in the firelight. But Meryl had to put her foot down. “No, Vash. You need rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if you bled to death before the first moon sets. You can’t move right now.” As if to refute her statement, he took several tentative steps away from the fire, aided by Wolfwood. His footsteps soon faltered, though, and his face went ashen as he sat down with a sudden thump on the ground. He breathed out an almost inhuman hiss of pain, clutching at his side convulsively. Meryl didn’t voice her obvious ‘I told you so’, instead choosing to go over and pass him another roll of bandages.

Vash didn’t meet her gaze in the darkness, and still insisted, quietly, through clenched teeth. “We have to go. He’s coming. He’s coming.” The blond man pronounced the ‘he’ like the way a child would refer to the boogeyman. Little did the woman know how right she had been in that observation.

Well, she would find out soon.

Nobody got any sleep that night.

As the second moon set, Vash suddenly stiffened at a sound only he had heard, quickly looking to his left, into the darkness. His gaze looked almost creepy to Meryl, like that of a cat staring into emptiness. But when Meryl, too, turned to look, she noticed movement in that darkness. It was coming closer.

“Stop where you are!” Vash called, hoarsely, hand moving instinctively towards his belt for his pistol (too bad it wasn’t there, as Meryl had removed it himself when he had realized that Vash wouldn’t calm down).

“Is that how you greet me when it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, Vash?” Came a smooth voice, origin unseen. There was a strange accent to the way that it said ‘Vash’, Meryl noticed. Almost like it was two syllables. Strange.

It stepped closer.

“I said stop!” Vash cried, an acerbic edge to his tone. “I am warning you, Knives!” At this final word, Wolfwood stiffened, too, and began to slowly and cautiously unwrap the cloth from his Punisher. This, more than anything put both Insurance girls on edge, and had both of them reaching for their weapons as well.

The footsteps stopped. Meryl could just make out the dim outline of a tall figure in white. He didn’t seem to be holding any weapon, but then again, Vash appeared unarmed half of the time, and he literally always had a firearm.

“I just want to help you, Vash.”

“Help? Ha!” Vash grated out bitterly. “You can’t help me. You never help me. You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

There was a pause. “You truly think that, Vash? When have I ever attempted to kill you? Hurt you, maybe, but I’ve never wanted you dead. You, on the other hand, have attempted to kill me numerous times. At least you don’t have a gun so rudely pointed in my face this time.” Vash had an expression on his face that seemed to indicate that that wasn’t by choice.

Meryl couldn’t quite believe that. Vash wanting to kill anyone was an almost laughable thought.

“Oh, yes, I’ve forgotten, Knives. Killing people I care about is a much easier way to direct your malice than by simply killing me.” There was another pause. “… Get out of my head, Knives!” Vash snapped, genuinely angry. Meryl was seriously beginning to doubt Vash’s lucidity. “Get out of my head!”

“I only wished to carry out a conversation without your pets hanging on to every word.” The voice said calmly, daring to step forward once more.

A sigh. “They’re not pets, Knives. They’re human beings.”

“That amounts to the same thing, to us.” Meryl had lost the thread of the conversation, somewhere. There was another pause, with Vash clearly projecting anger. “At least let me come closer.”

“No.” Vash’s reply was immediate.

“Why not? I can kill them all just as easily from here as I can over there.”

“I won’t let you kill them.”

“And how do you plan to stop me? Shall you bleed on me? Project your pain – more than you already are, I might add – onto me? I’ve grown good at blocking you out.” It was almost insulting that the man didn’t mention what the other three could do. Apparently, he didn’t even consider the three of them a threat. Meryl and Milly exchanged glances, fingering their respective weapons. Wolfwood had, by this time, quietly undone all of the buckles on the Punisher, but seemed to be hesitating to attack.

“You won’t kill them.”

“I won’t,” the man agreed. “Not yet, anyway. I haven’t come to aggravate you. I’ve come to help you.”

“I find that seriously hard to believe.” Vash replied, still clutching at his side in obvious pain.

“You are going to die if you do not accept my help. That wound is already infected. I thought you disapproved of suicide.”
“I also disapprove of people who insist on killing my friends without remorse.”

“Ah, yes, but don’t you also believe that anyone can be redeemed?” Vash was silent. “I know you, Vash. Do not worry. I shall not kill anybody tonight. I promise. Now will you let me help you?” Vash narrowed his fever bright eyes.

“How can I tell that you’re telling the truth?”

“You insult me, Vash. You can always tell if I’m telling the truth, if you really want to. Besides, my goal is to help our siblings, not kill them.” Vash was related to this guy?

Vash almost seemed to relent, but then stiffened, all but hissing. “If your intentions are truly as honourable as you say, then why the hell are you still trying to dig into my mind?” Yes, Vash was definitely growing delirious. Apparently this mysterious ‘sibling’ of his agreed with the sentiment.

“Vash-“ and there was that odd pronunciation of the name again! “If you don’t let me into your mind, you will die.” All right… so why was he playing along with the delirium?

“Ha! I’m already dying.” Vash sounded bitter, far more bitter than a twenty-something-year-old had any right to be.

“Vash.” The man said, sharply. Wolfwood’s hand twitched in its place upon the Punisher. “You are not a child. Stop acting like one.” Vash scowled, whether in response to that statement or in pain from his wound; it was difficult to tell which. “Vash, see reason –“

“I don’t like your reasoning. The last time you asked me to see reason I – I - lost my arm.”

“True,” the voice conceded. “But even I can see that your hair is darkening. You know what that means.”

“It has turned dark before and I’ve always gotten better.”

“Vash, half of your hair is black.” At these words, Meryl turned and gave a long, hard look at Vash. What she had thought were just shadows were, indeed, Vash’s actual hair colour. When had he gotten it dyed? “You’re getting old, brother.”

“Shut up. This is coming from the guy who changes his body every two decades.”

“Now that is an exaggeration.” All throughout this exchange, the voice seemed to be edging closer, as someone would approach a wounded animal likely to flee at any moment.

“Stop it, Knives. Don’t come closer. I can hear you.” Vash’s tone took on a threatening edge.

“Again, what can you do about it, Vash? You’re dying.”

“Ha! Just what you want, eh?”

“What? No!” The reply was quick, and harsh. “When have I ever wanted you dead?”

“The assassins you sent after me were a bit of a giveaway.”

“Those humans didn’t stand a chance against you and you know it.”

“Why send them at all, then?”

“To get your attention. You can’t hide from the dark side of humans forever, Vash.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” There was another long, awkward silence.

“Just let me come closer, Vash.”

“No.”

“Vash –“

“No!”

An exasperated sigh was heard. “Vash-“

“Shut up. Leave me alone.” It would have sound almost petulant, where it not spoken with such obvious angry overtones.

(***)

“Why aren’t you afraid of me, little girl? The priest knows what I am. He’s afraid, and rightfully so. I could kill you all in an instant. But I will not.” It was more than a little unnerving to know that the only reason that you weren’t yet dead wasn’t because of any sort of ingrained morality, but more because of a flimsy promise to a sibling he apparently didn’t even get along all that well with...

(***)

The staring contest might have continued on indefinitely were it not for the simple matter of Vash’s deteriorating health. Less than a minute later, Vash’s eyes rolled back into his sweaty head and his body pitched forward towards the ground. Before it could hit, the newcomer had moved; catching his apparent brother before his face could hit the sand. The man had moved nearly twenty feet in less than a second.

This, of course, alarmed the only other conscious gunman, Wolfwood, who swung his weapon to aim directly at the back of Knives’ head. “Don’t move.”

Knives didn’t even deign to shift his gaze. There was a brief flash of the firelight reflecting off of something almost but not quite metallic, and Wolfwood’s pistol fell in three pieces to the ground. “Do not try that again, human.” The last word was spat out like an epithet.

“Don’t you dare hurt Mister Vash!” Milley shrilled.

Knives didn’t reply, but just placed the palm of his hand against Vash’s forehead and closed his eyes. For a brief moment, Meryl thought that the man must be checking Vash’s fever, which must be raging by now, but that was before his eyes started to glow from beneath his eyelids.

(***)

Whatever Knives was doing seemed to be working, because not twenty minutes after Vash had fainted – or, rather, “lost consciousness”, as that was the manlier and therefore preferable term – he woke with a gasp. Immediately, Vash struggled to escape Knives’ firm grip, but…

(***)

“Just relax, and resonate with me.”

(***)

“Even when we were children, you could tell. Except when you were being stupid about Rem, of course.” That touched a nerve.

“Don’t you dare talk about Rem like that!”

(***)

“We have a shared consciousness,” Vash explained, quietly. “It’s like… each of us is a goldfish bowl, floating in a large pool of water.” That would be difficult to imagine, for someone who had lived their entire lives on a desert planet and who had taken nothing but showers. “I mean, we have distinct personalities, emotions and sometimes thoughts, but we’re all connected and sort of… well, not the same, but-“

“Unique, but connected.” Knives provided, not taking his eyes off of his brother.

(***)

“It also means that Vash could have gotten a new, unmarked body anytime he wanted.” Knives said, pointedly. “It’s not difficult to transfer our consciousness to another plant vessel, provided that they’re just seeds. Most of them don’t have “souls” for several months, anyway. Vash has remained in that body for - how long has it been? Nearly a century and a half? It’s probably breaking down.”

(***)

“Wait, how did you get here? We’re in the middle of the desert.”

Knives actually rolled his eyes. “I flew.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

“Yes, you human are so flightless. Fascinating.”

**************************

Once Upon A Time, A Trigun One-Shot

Once upon a time, there was a planet called Earth. And on this beautiful green planet, there lived the Humans. And for a time, they lived well. They developed magnificent civilizations, which rose and fell in imitation of the ocean tides (as civilizations are wont to do).

The Humans were, and still are, a tenacious species. Nothing could stop them, not plague, famine, nor war. Their population grew and grew, and their technological achievements grew with them. They invented the automobile, and great flying machines. To power these machines, they used fuels they took from the Earth, which they perceived as limitless. They harnessed the power of the rivers, and the wind. They cut down their trees greedily with barely a thought to the consequences.

And there were consequences. From their cities poured foul black smoke; toxins seeped into their rivers, and they cut down so many trees that even those great plant kings did not have time to grow back.

The planet was dying, and they took no notice. Selfishly, they assumed that because of their short life spans, they themselves would be long dead by the time their Eden became a Hell.

But there were some who resisted this train of thought. There had to be a way to save the planet, or at least its people. The first inklings of what was eventually dubbed "Project SEEDs" was born. They could colonize other planets, with more resources, and create a new Earth. But the power to move the entire human population over infinite amounts of space would be enormous; they would need to build ships large enough to house millions if not billions of people, fuel those ships, not to mention feed its passengers for who knew how long. The Earth's dwindling resources wouldn't be able to support such a monumental task.

Some despaired; they, and what few generations they had left, would remain trapped on this dying planet.

But then, hope was rekindled. On a small island country called Japan, the first Plant was born. She was the product of three generations of work, based upon genetic experimentation that had been banned centuries before. She was designed to be able to manipulate her own molecular structure to expel any substance desired, be it water, food, heat - or electricity. Best of all, she could be programmed to obey human commands.

The corporations of the world seized upon this wonderful idea. "You must make more of these things," they demanded of the scientists.

But the scientists themselves feared what they themselves had created. If a creature of such power decided that it simply wanted to live on its own, what was stopping it from killing all in its path? And so, they refused to make another, a male, theorizing that if it could not reproduce, when it died, that would be the end of it (for they could not bear to kill such a creature, as beautiful and dangerous as she was). They placed her in a round glass bulb, so they could facilitate their power collection, and left it at that. She was merely a scientific curiosity, nothing more than that; certainly too expensive to produce to be of interest to the world corporations. The project was dropped, and the scientists left in search of another resource they could invent to exploit.

And the first Plant was left alone for several decades, with none but the few disinterested Human plant engineers for company.

She grew lonely, floating in the liquid of the Plant bulb; the sameness of each day began to irritate her. It irritated her so much that she decided to do something about it. If she could alter her molecular structure, what was stopping her from creating another, a Sister to join her in life?

And so, the second Plant was born. At first merely a cherub nestled among the feathers on her MotherSister's back, within two years, she had grown to become just as beautiful as the one who had created her.

They found ways of communicating with each other in the soundless liquid of their bulb, between their minds, and gave each other their names; First Sister and Second Sister.

The bulb was their world, and for a time, they were happy. They ignored and were ignored by the noisy and greedy Humans outside; at least until Third Sister came along. Then, the engineers began to take notice of the two new creatures within the bulb.

"The Plant reproduced on its own!" They chattered amongst themselves. "We must create more of these things!" (For these were the scientists of a new generation, more bold and desperate than their parents and grandparents)

And so First Sister, Second Sister, and Third Sister were put into separate bulbs. They could still speak to one another in their own way, for what was distance to minds such as theirs? But they grew lonely in their individual bulbs, and, as the scientists had hoped, created more of their own. Cherubs that, when they grew up, were perfect replicas of their own MotherSister, and so were all replicas of the First Sister. They were all Sisters in this respect.

With the rediscovery of the Plants, Project SEEDs was revived in earnest. It took decades to create the immense ships and the millions of individual cryogenic chambers, but the determination of this new generation of humans to survive was only rivalled by the greed to consume of their ancestors.

Finally, the Humans boarded the ships that they had created (their own Noah's Ark), and left the shell of the planet that had given them life behind.

During this time, the Plants had grown as well; there were now thousands of them. They considered themselves all Sisters, and each new the story of each other’s life, such as it was. They had given each other names from what they'd overheard from the humans, garbled as their speech was through solid glass and Plant-fluid. Their names were places, or phrases, or numbers; whatever they thought was interesting at the time. They gave themselves names such as April Six, Beauty Forty-Two, Orleans Delta Five, and Dangerous Beans Twenty-Seven. They marvelled at their own perfection; at the radiance of their feathers, the elegance of their slender limbs, and at the simple allure of each other's minds. And for many years, everything was good.

Then came the Last Run of Second Sister.

The Humans had been wandering the galaxy for many decades in their great SEEDs ships, and were begining to despair of ever finding another Earth, another Eden. Scientists were awoken from their unnatural sleep and consulted. And after many hours of discussion, the scientists presented a theory to the pilots. They theorized that if they were to give one of the smaller ships an extreme boost in power, it could travel further more quickly and do reconnaissance for the much larger fleet. To accomplish this task, they thought that, because Plants were living beings with the will to live, they would struggle harder to produce energy were they to be on the brink of death; this would create, in theory, a huge amount of power.

The pilots, desperate, agreed to try out this theory. For what was the worst that could happen? The death of a single plant? They had thousands more at hand, and, if needed, could easily create more.

And so it came to be that Second Sister was selected, because she had grown lazy over the years, and had grown fat with feathers and cherubs.

Second Sister's Last Run lasted several hours, much longer than it does now, and she suffered greatly as the black slowly took over the blonde in her hair.

And when it was done, it was found that the scientists had been correct; an almost immeasurable amount of power had been harnessed.

The remaining sisters grieved; they shrieked incessantly for many days, and none could be quieted, for they had heard the death screams of their Sister. This era is known to the plants as The Time Of A Thousand Screams. None grieved so much as First Sister, who had just lost her first DaughterSister. So great was her grief that she decided to let the Humans know of it.

It was such that Tessla, the First of the Freeborn, came to be. She was given a female Human body (for aesthetic reasons, because the plant found the female Human body much more graceful and pretty than those of the males), but she remained irreversibly one of the Sisters, in that she contained power cores in her arms, and had the advanced mind and communication abilities of her kind.

She was discovered by a pilot and plant technician on the Mothership of the SEEDs fleet; a woman named Rem Seibrem. When this woman saw Tessla, who looked like nothing more than a small, perfect, Human infant. And she was awed, because she had an inkling of the significance of such an event. The Plants had created a DaughterSister that would, when grown, be able to communicate with both the Humans and the Plants with ease.

Unfortunately, the scientists, again awoken to witness this event, did not see it in such a way. They were confused as to how mindless biomachines could create a creature that appeared, for all intents and purposes, Human.

She had a human voice, human feelings, a human face… but the humans didn’t see her as one of their own. Instead, they dissected her alive.

(***)

Essentially, Tessla’s death was a declaration of war.

(***)

Description of Plant feathers: beautiful, but hard to the touch, like blunt blades, which yielded easily to one's touch. They were a pale blue colour which glistened like crushed velvet in the light.

(***)

Author’s Note: A mental hug to all that got the Terry Pratchett reference!

*****************

Summary: Sasori-sensei of Suna. (Please forgive the alliteration.) A story told in drabbles.

(***)

Even the most minor of decisions can have strange, unforeseen and drastic consequences. The more important the decision, of course, the more extreme the consequences are.

Take, for example, Sasori of the Red Sand. If he hadn’t grown fed up with being under the thumb of the Sandaime Kazekage, and hadn’t grown quite so obsessed with his art (that wasn’t to say that he wasn’t still obsessed, goodness no, just less so), and had, perhaps, considered that the life of a missing nin just wouldn’t leave him with quite as much time to devote to his puppetry... Well, things would have turned out quite different.

Sasori may yet live to regret not turning missing-nin, though. In the Akatsuki, he wouldn’t have to submit to the humiliation of being the sensei of a genin team, and could actually focus on wanton destruction (his area of expertise).

(***)

Sasori really was the most logical choice, if only because of his durability. If Gaara, for example, managed to rip off one of Sasori’s arms, he could always carve another with little difficulty. Sasori may even benefit from being so close to Gaara – at least he might have a use for all of the corpses of Gaara’s victims. He could make them into something useful!

(***)

It was inevitable that they would eventually ask about the flamethrowers.

“It’s the ultimate expression of my art.”

“That’s gross, sensei.” Temari informed him, matter-of-factly.

(***)

Being only half an inch taller than one’s charges can make anybody irritable and impatient with short jokes.

It can also make anyone incredibly irritable when one is frequently mistaken for one of one’s students. Honestly, didn’t the killing intent that he was radiating clearly indicate years of practice that only jounin-level ninja could achieve?

(***)

(Kankurou is often mistaken for Sasori, and vice-versa (much to Sasori’s irritation), mostly because Kankurou is a puppetmaster and hasn’t learned not to carry his puppets so openly… but also because he’s the tallest of the group. Sasori is the second shortest, after Gaara… but not by much. )

(***)

Sasori still goes over to his grandmother’s house for dinner sometimes, even though he no longer finds it necessary to eat.

Instead of being under the thumb of the Kazekage, he was now under the thumb of his grandmother... kind of. He was an S-class ninja, after all, for all that he did look the part of a young grandchild. The thing to remember was that Chiyo was an S-classed ninja as well.

He also lives alone, despite his apparent young age. His elderly neighbours still haven’t quite figured out that he isn’t a young orphan living alone, and won’t refrain from occasionally dropping by with casseroles and simple “if you need anything, our door is always open” platitudes.