[ He sleeps deep and soundly. Maybe it's the fact that it was a long day and the booze and the partying finally let his brain shut down enough to let him really rest, but Josh blinks awake to the sight of his digital clock staring back at him just as the minute clicks to 3:15.
It's too dark in his room, the soft glow of the white-blue digits surrounded by shadow and the faint hint of lights from.the lamps outside on the street -- but he's wide awake; alert.
There is also, the distinct sound of dripping ( did I forget to shut the tap right? ) which prompts him to roll around with a heavy, well-rested sigh, he's thinking about how maybe he can jog again and come back in time to catch a couple more hours before he has to get up, get dressed and head to London for another day of work.
But--
--sitting up now, because there's a figure sitting by his window, and he knows the way Makoto looks enough by now that he's not startled by the silhouette so much as alarm bells are sounding in his head because... It's too soon for him to looks this solid. ]
[Makoto, on the other hand, doesn't even notice what the problem is. As far he is concerned, he's still sitting inside a space that he's cleared for himself within Josh's brain, looking not out the window that he's currently sitting beside, but at the tangle of shadow and string of memory that last night has become for him.
He has materialized completely now, dressed in the black kimono that he used to go around in when he was still Bound (the kimono with the golden and green snakes moving through higanbana - a birthday gift from his Beloved, ragged and tattered now that it has joined him in the afterlife). He's 28 all over again, but wrapped up in the same bandages that had been wound about his body, down to the tips of his fingers and toes, in a futile attempt on Kaien's part to keep Makoto's guts from spilling out. The bloodstains on them are as old as 2047. They constantly shrink and grow and shrink again.
The dripping, of course, is coming from him. He is, from here until always, going to look like he just stepped out of the rain.]
He still tastes the same way.
[It's a soft statement, said in a voice that's as cracked as shattered glass. He thinks, even now, that he's still talking to himself, or perhaps into Josh's dreams.]
Who tast-- [ Josh catches himself as the earlier part of the evening reasserts itself: Shenanigans with Hikaru 101 over at the club called Hyve, the people, the Art of Reading Them and levelling the playing field and making it yours; and then, Hikaru asking for his rings, Josh handing them over with some visible reluctance before the Blade King walked off for a good twenty or so minutes.
With Makoto's statement, those twenty minutes he'd been left to his own devices -- productive, if he can say so himself, since he'd amused himself by making eyes at a pretty brunette who he is certain would have gathered the courage to wander over if Hikaru hadn't come back when he did, and Josh had realized that the evening was over.
Leaving the bed now and coming to sit by Makoto's feet, concern washing over his features.
Drowned, the geist had told him before. By my father. ]
[ --and of course now his mind is zipping through everything he's filed away on his kind and those that walk with them: the meaning behind this, how long it's been since Makoto had fallen in that engagement close to the Russian border, what it implies that he appears solid enough to touch. ]
[He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want this crippling sense of loss, this overpowering grief, this debilitating desperation, this quiet bitterness, this uncompromising desire. He doesn't want any of the other nameless things that lay between the cracks within all of those, and then some.
He knows, logically, what this means. (That he has failed. That he is at the end of his rope, that the rope is on fire and he's going up in smoke with it.)]
I don't know.
[It's quite possible that, ever since they were introduced, Josh has never heard Makoto sound this way (human, on the brink of totally breaking down.)]
[ And maybe that is why Josh acts before he thinks, reaching out to close a hand over one of those that Makoto is looking down at, because the circumstances might be different but the look on the former Sin-Eater's face strikes a chord that echoes a little too loud in Josh's own chest--
( Was it my fault? Was it because I took you down and-- Angel, no, don't-- Josh, you're in a wheelchair.
The twist in his chest and the shakiness in his arm as he set a hand to his friend's back, as Angelo Salas pitched forward to bury his face in his hands. It's okay. Shit happens. Bad draw, right? It sucks. But it's... it's not your fault. Doctors said if it wasn't the training run, it could have been something worse. )
--blinking now, surprised that his fingers are curled around the geist's. A slow exhale because... well, shit. ]
Breathe, [ wincing a little because -- may be the wrong choice of words when talking to a dead guy ] you're alright.
[ Then a brief pause, before: ] You know this better than me. Geists are all about this: feeling and the excess of it. You can get a handle on it, just remember that this is part of it.
[But the feel of Josh's hand on his own makes him remember what it was like to hold Hikaru Shinta's face between his just hours ago, to be close enough to feel the warmth of the younger man's breath on his face as if he wasn't dead, as if they were still both alive, as if they were still both something, not nothing, that he could still...
"Please. You can't go on like this."
...then later, when he had crushed those wrists, gripped them tight with his own two hands. Later, when he had covered those lips with his own, trying to channel everything he wanted to say - wanted to do - in a bruising kiss.
The memory hurt, like a gunshot or a cut from a blade. It hurt as much as he had wanted to hurt him.
And still, he had taken all of it. He hadn't moved away, had only opened his eyes and looked at Makoto when it was finished.
"You have to let me go."]
I'm not okay. I can't. I can't.
[He isn't even sure what he's referring to for himself, really. Can't what? Can't possibly be alright? Can't control himself? Can't do this? Can't ever have the one thing - one person - he's ever wanted?]
[ It's a little like dealing with a good friend having a breakdown... if you add in the intimate knowledge that the man you're dealing with happens to be a total control freak, by virtue of having glimpsed a number of memories in your head.
As it is, Josh suddenly finds himself grateful that Makoto isn't his geist, that he isn't feeling the full brunt of whatever it is that his companion is feeling now, utterly wrecked as he looks just sitting there, talking.
Hands grasping both of Makoto's forearms now, a steadying grip as he tries to get through to him and quietly begging for support from Coach because -- maybe he can help? A little? Because he really isn't sure what he can do. ]
Makoto. Makoto, you have to focus. You don't have to deal with it if you don't want to. But you have to calm down.
[ What the hell had happened in those twenty minutes??? ]
[The boy is right, of course. It feels as though Josh's voice is coming to him from a great distance, but god, it had to be better than all of this.
It's getting cold in Josh's room, cold and darker than it should be. Makoto, in the meantime, is quietly sinking his head into his hands.]
I can't. [It's a tiny whisper, tiny and broken.] I can't let him go.
[(Because letting Hikaru Shinta go meant that he had crawled back up - lost his second chance, lost that shot at redemption - for nothing.)
Thankfully, Davis is stirring inside Josh's head.
We can bring him back together. Just keep holding on to him.
They both had to push for it. They both needed to stay calm, because that was one emotion that Makoto Kuzunoha just wasn't capable of feeling right now.]
Makoto-- [ fingers tightening as he joins the geist at the window, concern washing his features as he tries to grasp what it is that's going on.
Coach, can you talk to him? Feeling oddly young again, like the day he came home to his dad sitting blankly at the dinner table, a cup of coffee gone cold by an otherwise limp hand. ] Come on, man. Talk to me.
[ There is a sense of the room shrinking all around him, and he notes the goosebumps rising along his forearms. ] Makoto. Makoto. Snap out of it, man. Talk to me.
And maybe - just maybe - Davis sounds the way that he used to whenever he had set his mind on something back when he was still alive. Josh will feel it: the way the presence in his mind expands, and singularly directs itself to what is right in front of them both.
The former coach is manifesting himself now, materializing right behind Makoto, setting two hands down on the other geist's shoulders. The contact makes Makoto flinch as if he had just taken a bullet; his entire body trembles.
Josh won't hear what Davis is saying. He'll only see his geist bend down, and murmur something into the other geist's ear, and notice, as well, how even though Makoto's shaking his head, the cold slowly starts to recede.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passes before Davis is withdrawing, and Makoto's finally speaking.]
Sorry.
[He's raw, vulnerable, and so far from what he should be that it isn't even funny.]
[ Shaking his head now, fingers loosening from there place on Makoto's forearms but not quite letting go just yet.
Josh might be shivering a little, but he figures it's mostly because of the fact that the room's temperature is back to normal now and his body needs to acclimatize. ]
It's okay, man. [ There really isn't anything to apologize for. ] Better?
[ Josh doesn't touch the bed. It's strange. He was excited about this, was grateful for Stanley going back in a second time to clearly make a piece of furniture permanent for his room in the Tower, but now, he's sitting in his mostly bare room, staring at that bed and finds that he's not entirely sure if he can bring himself to sleep in it.
He can't remember Stanley's exact words; only that "emotions" and "shelved" and "he is mature enough" was part of that whole spiel and these keep coming back to him. There's an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach that he doesn't know what to do with or how to define because... just because.
How the night went from awkward to okay to better to good to suddenly this, he really isn't sure.
So he's just sitting there with his head in his hands waiting for Makoto to show up -- if ever the geist does. ]
[He is manifesting promptly enough, rounding off to recover four packs of the usual, and quietly sitting down right beside you. He draws his knees up, drapes his arms on them, and peers, angling his head towards your face.
[ It takes him a full minute. No, two -- before he shudders.
He can't think. He'd only really meant to ask Stanley what it had been like for Sabina and him to be friends before they became something else -- and now he can barely remember why he'd wanted to ask in the first place.
No. Wait. He did. Sort of. ] I think... Jessiah Vice was right. I should just stick to smoking when I go out.
[ He's straightening up now, taking that pack, but oddly enough not lighting up. ]
Go ahead, man.
[ About that cigarette. Looking down at it now, wondering if he should. Quiet, still; because he's decided he doesn't know what to say to the first half of that exchange just yet. ]
[Watching now. Then fixing his gaze on that pack, canting his head up in a movement that says well, take one already, you idiot (complete with a look, of course), and promptly holding out the lighter, already clicked.
Please to be letting him fuss over you this way. This is the (dead) man who knocked you out when you tried to go for a run, remember?
Of course, not speaking like this and just watching how you move and how you look gives him an opportunity to read you without having to break completely into your brain. Personal space can still be a thing, right?]
[All of that is telling enough, as if the vague presence of Josh at the back of his own mind already isn't.
Setting the lighter aside, and taking another drag from his cigarette. When he speaks next, he says it quietly: there's no need to do it any other way, even if some possibilities might be gentler.]
No. It's not.
[He has been silent, in fact, ever since that last breakdown. No "snakes"-worthy moments. No turtling. Nothing.]
[ Looking up now, the look in his eyes a little panicked, a little lost -- things he couldn't show while out there in the living room because Stan had caught him by surprise. ]
Could it be leftover? From before? Could it just me be riding on that influencing-- [ he cuts off and there is a quiet, almost desperate "please, Makoto," in the way that he's looking at the geist. His breath is shallow, but oddly loud in the silence of the room. ]
[In as much as the look on your face cuts at him, he respects you enough to not sugar coat, not pull his punches, and be very ready to help you pick yourself right back up when you're done.]
[ And you've been joined to his brain for long enough that he knows what that statement means. Which is why he's pressing his head back into his hands -- fingers fisted now as he tries to breathe.
That laugh that escapes him is awash with a mix of emotions: guilt, helplessness, and even a little bit of fear. ]
[This reminds him, uncomfortably, of the very first night that he manifested more than a month ago. Your roles have been switched around for the moment, but he's caught snippets of the playback in your memories.
Not his best moment, that. And this certainly wasn't yours.]
I'm not going to tell you that it's okay yet. Talk to me first.
[And even with the potential harshness of that first statement, he's reaching out with his free hand and squeezing your shoulder.]
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It's too dark in his room, the soft glow of the white-blue digits surrounded by shadow and the faint hint of lights from.the lamps outside on the street -- but he's wide awake; alert.
There is also, the distinct sound of dripping ( did I forget to shut the tap right? ) which prompts him to roll around with a heavy, well-rested sigh, he's thinking about how maybe he can jog again and come back in time to catch a couple more hours before he has to get up, get dressed and head to London for another day of work.
But--
--sitting up now, because there's a figure sitting by his window, and he knows the way Makoto looks enough by now that he's not startled by the silhouette so much as alarm bells are sounding in his head because... It's too soon for him to looks this solid. ]
Oh yeah date: June 8, 2063 || 3 AM
He has materialized completely now, dressed in the black kimono that he used to go around in when he was still Bound (the kimono with the golden and green snakes moving through higanbana - a birthday gift from his Beloved, ragged and tattered now that it has joined him in the afterlife). He's 28 all over again, but wrapped up in the same bandages that had been wound about his body, down to the tips of his fingers and toes, in a futile attempt on Kaien's part to keep Makoto's guts from spilling out. The bloodstains on them are as old as 2047. They constantly shrink and grow and shrink again.
The dripping, of course, is coming from him. He is, from here until always, going to look like he just stepped out of the rain.]
He still tastes the same way.
[It's a soft statement, said in a voice that's as cracked as shattered glass. He thinks, even now, that he's still talking to himself, or perhaps into Josh's dreams.]
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With Makoto's statement, those twenty minutes he'd been left to his own devices -- productive, if he can say so himself, since he'd amused himself by making eyes at a pretty brunette who he is certain would have gathered the courage to wander over if Hikaru hadn't come back when he did, and Josh had realized that the evening was over.
Leaving the bed now and coming to sit by Makoto's feet, concern washing over his features.
Drowned, the geist had told him before. By my father. ]
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Clench, relax. Breathe in, breathe out (even if you don't need to do it anymore).]
I shouldn't be out.
[His voice sounds about as empty as he feels right now. Ironic, perhaps, that the dead feel emotion even more intensely than the living do.]
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[ --and of course now his mind is zipping through everything he's filed away on his kind and those that walk with them: the meaning behind this, how long it's been since Makoto had fallen in that engagement close to the Russian border, what it implies that he appears solid enough to touch. ]
How... how do you feel?
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[He doesn't want to feel. He doesn't want this crippling sense of loss, this overpowering grief, this debilitating desperation, this quiet bitterness, this uncompromising desire. He doesn't want any of the other nameless things that lay between the cracks within all of those, and then some.
He knows, logically, what this means. (That he has failed. That he is at the end of his rope, that the rope is on fire and he's going up in smoke with it.)]
I don't know.
[It's quite possible that, ever since they were introduced, Josh has never heard Makoto sound this way (human, on the brink of totally breaking down.)]
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( Was it my fault? Was it because I took you down and--
Angel, no, don't--
Josh, you're in a wheelchair.
The twist in his chest and the shakiness in his arm as he set a hand to his friend's back, as Angelo Salas pitched forward to bury his face in his hands. It's okay. Shit happens. Bad draw, right? It sucks. But it's... it's not your fault. Doctors said if it wasn't the training run, it could have been something worse. )
--blinking now, surprised that his fingers are curled around the geist's. A slow exhale because... well, shit. ]
Breathe, [ wincing a little because -- may be the wrong choice of words when talking to a dead guy ] you're alright.
[ Then a brief pause, before: ] You know this better than me. Geists are all about this: feeling and the excess of it. You can get a handle on it, just remember that this is part of it.
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[But the feel of Josh's hand on his own makes him remember what it was like to hold Hikaru Shinta's face between his just hours ago, to be close enough to feel the warmth of the younger man's breath on his face as if he wasn't dead, as if they were still both alive, as if they were still both something, not nothing, that he could still...
"Please. You can't go on like this."
...then later, when he had crushed those wrists, gripped them tight with his own two hands. Later, when he had covered those lips with his own, trying to channel everything he wanted to say - wanted to do - in a bruising kiss.
The memory hurt, like a gunshot or a cut from a blade. It hurt as much as he had wanted to hurt him.
And still, he had taken all of it. He hadn't moved away, had only opened his eyes and looked at Makoto when it was finished.
"You have to let me go."]
I'm not okay. I can't. I can't.
[He isn't even sure what he's referring to for himself, really. Can't what? Can't possibly be alright? Can't control himself? Can't do this? Can't ever have the one thing - one person - he's ever wanted?]
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As it is, Josh suddenly finds himself grateful that Makoto isn't his geist, that he isn't feeling the full brunt of whatever it is that his companion is feeling now, utterly wrecked as he looks just sitting there, talking.
Hands grasping both of Makoto's forearms now, a steadying grip as he tries to get through to him and quietly begging for support from Coach because -- maybe he can help? A little? Because he really isn't sure what he can do. ]
Makoto. Makoto, you have to focus. You don't have to deal with it if you don't want to. But you have to calm down.
[ What the hell had happened in those twenty minutes??? ]
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It's getting cold in Josh's room, cold and darker than it should be. Makoto, in the meantime, is quietly sinking his head into his hands.]
I can't. [It's a tiny whisper, tiny and broken.] I can't let him go.
[(Because letting Hikaru Shinta go meant that he had crawled back up - lost his second chance, lost that shot at redemption - for nothing.)
Thankfully, Davis is stirring inside Josh's head.
We can bring him back together. Just keep holding on to him.
They both had to push for it. They both needed to stay calm, because that was one emotion that Makoto Kuzunoha just wasn't capable of feeling right now.]
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Coach, can you talk to him? Feeling oddly young again, like the day he came home to his dad sitting blankly at the dinner table, a cup of coffee gone cold by an otherwise limp hand. ] Come on, man. Talk to me.
[ There is a sense of the room shrinking all around him, and he notes the goosebumps rising along his forearms. ] Makoto. Makoto. Snap out of it, man. Talk to me.
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And maybe - just maybe - Davis sounds the way that he used to whenever he had set his mind on something back when he was still alive. Josh will feel it: the way the presence in his mind expands, and singularly directs itself to what is right in front of them both.
The former coach is manifesting himself now, materializing right behind Makoto, setting two hands down on the other geist's shoulders. The contact makes Makoto flinch as if he had just taken a bullet; his entire body trembles.
Josh won't hear what Davis is saying. He'll only see his geist bend down, and murmur something into the other geist's ear, and notice, as well, how even though Makoto's shaking his head, the cold slowly starts to recede.
Nearly a quarter of an hour passes before Davis is withdrawing, and Makoto's finally speaking.]
Sorry.
[He's raw, vulnerable, and so far from what he should be that it isn't even funny.]
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Josh might be shivering a little, but he figures it's mostly because of the fact that the room's temperature is back to normal now and his body needs to acclimatize. ]
It's okay, man. [ There really isn't anything to apologize for. ] Better?
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Waking the Dead 2.0 | Saturday, 14 July 2063 : "make it up and then i take it off the shelf"
He can't remember Stanley's exact words; only that "emotions" and "shelved" and "he is mature enough" was part of that whole spiel and these keep coming back to him. There's an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach that he doesn't know what to do with or how to define because... just because.
How the night went from awkward to okay to better to good to suddenly this, he really isn't sure.
So he's just sitting there with his head in his hands waiting for Makoto to show up -- if ever the geist does. ]
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No words. He knows that YOU know that he's out.]
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He can't think. He'd only really meant to ask Stanley what it had been like for Sabina and him to be friends before they became something else -- and now he can barely remember why he'd wanted to ask in the first place.
No. Wait. He did. Sort of. ] I think... Jessiah Vice was right. I should just stick to smoking when I go out.
[ He sounds -- in a word -- wrecked. ]
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[Speaking of cigarettes. He's lighting up, and then holding the pack out in your direction.
He'll light up for you when you take it. Do not try to stop him.
Yes: that is written all over his face.]
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Go ahead, man.
[ About that cigarette. Looking down at it now, wondering if he should. Quiet, still; because he's decided he doesn't know what to say to the first half of that exchange just yet. ]
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Please to be letting him fuss over you this way. This is the (dead) man who knocked you out when you tried to go for a run, remember?
Of course, not speaking like this and just watching how you move and how you look gives him an opportunity to read you without having to break completely into your brain. Personal space can still be a thing, right?]
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It's not the spillover from you anymore, is it?
[ Soft, a touch choked up because his head suddenly hurts, really badly. ]
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Setting the lighter aside, and taking another drag from his cigarette. When he speaks next, he says it quietly: there's no need to do it any other way, even if some possibilities might be gentler.]
No. It's not.
[He has been silent, in fact, ever since that last breakdown. No "snakes"-worthy moments. No turtling. Nothing.]
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Could it be leftover? From before? Could it just me be riding on that influencing-- [ he cuts off and there is a quiet, almost desperate "please, Makoto," in the way that he's looking at the geist. His breath is shallow, but oddly loud in the silence of the room. ]
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[In as much as the look on your face cuts at him, he respects you enough to not sugar coat, not pull his punches, and be very ready to help you pick yourself right back up when you're done.]
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That laugh that escapes him is awash with a mix of emotions: guilt, helplessness, and even a little bit of fear. ]
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Not his best moment, that. And this certainly wasn't yours.]
I'm not going to tell you that it's okay yet. Talk to me first.
[And even with the potential harshness of that first statement, he's reaching out with his free hand and squeezing your shoulder.]
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i apologize that his introspection is so tldr;
lol
/)(\
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