[ It's a strange thing to see all that like he was there, if he had been Makoto: insistent, desperate, heart-broken over the Blade King.
It's a strange thing, the feelings in the memory both distant and present at the same time, and for one quiet moment, Josh is grateful that he isn't Makoto's Bound, that Makoto is not his geist the way Davis is -- because he's not entirely sure how he might have handled resonating with the former Sin-Eater after a flashback like this.
As it is, he's not entirely sure what does it, what it is about the scene glimpsed in his head that brings back old memories, but it does.
And it hurts. It hurts like a fresh wound. Like the day Angel had rammed into him and he couldn't get his legs to work right. Like the day the doctors told him the final diagnosis I'm sorry, son. I'm really sorry.
( Maritess Cambio had left her old tablet with him that day, had kissed him on the cheek like the son she thought of him as before she and Phillip -- his best friend since he and the other boy were in kindergarten, getting in trouble for running up the slide -- left with that bus. She'd been on the other end, patching the game through for him to watch as Cindy hovered by his side because the disease wracking his body had progressed to the point that he had no choice but to sit in a wheelchair most of the time, robbed of strength and movement and the freedom to do as any other twenty-one year old boy would.
By the time the team had returned, he'd been waiting in their living room, had asked his sister to help him put on varsity jacket, his number still stitched to the arm, their school's name stamped to the back. There were no apologies spoken, just the bent heads of a quarter of the total number of his team because their house wasn't big enough to fit them all.
Julian wasn't in the room. Neither was Angel. Phillip was though, one hand on Greg's shoulder as Josh bent forward, coughing because he'd been scolding his peers for a good five minutes straight before a fit overtook him.
He was always cold now. And always in pain. But all that was a helluva lot more bearable to seeing the team he'd helped pull together fall apart -- and all because they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that he would never step on that field alongside them again.
You get that through your heads. There's no miracle waiting in the wings. I'm not getting up from this goddamn chair and it's not right that you're not listening to your new Quarterback.
It was the one and only time he'd lost it in front of them all, feeling helpless and frustrated for a good twenty minutes until he'd finally calmed down.
I'm expendable, he'd whispered then, voice a little too loud in a room where everyone present was silent. You can't put that weight on your seniors and think that we'll always be around. There is a reason why we are a team and why we make it a point to groom the incoming kids.
Do you even know what I saw, stuck here at home? You could have won that game if you had just had a little more faith in Greg. He isn't me. And I don't want him to be me. )
Josh shuts his eyes now, shakes his head and stares down at the cigarette perched between his fingers. To the ash burning away at the end. ]
You still love him. [ Simple. Upfront. Factual. ] You're angry and you're hurt. But you still love him.
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It's a strange thing, the feelings in the memory both distant and present at the same time, and for one quiet moment, Josh is grateful that he isn't Makoto's Bound, that Makoto is not his geist the way Davis is -- because he's not entirely sure how he might have handled resonating with the former Sin-Eater after a flashback like this.
As it is, he's not entirely sure what does it, what it is about the scene glimpsed in his head that brings back old memories, but it does.
And it hurts. It hurts like a fresh wound. Like the day Angel had rammed into him and he couldn't get his legs to work right. Like the day the doctors told him the final diagnosis I'm sorry, son. I'm really sorry.
( Maritess Cambio had left her old tablet with him that day, had kissed him on the cheek like the son she thought of him as before she and Phillip -- his best friend since he and the other boy were in kindergarten, getting in trouble for running up the slide -- left with that bus. She'd been on the other end, patching the game through for him to watch as Cindy hovered by his side because the disease wracking his body had progressed to the point that he had no choice but to sit in a wheelchair most of the time, robbed of strength and movement and the freedom to do as any other twenty-one year old boy would.
By the time the team had returned, he'd been waiting in their living room, had asked his sister to help him put on varsity jacket, his number still stitched to the arm, their school's name stamped to the back. There were no apologies spoken, just the bent heads of a quarter of the total number of his team because their house wasn't big enough to fit them all.
Julian wasn't in the room. Neither was Angel. Phillip was though, one hand on Greg's shoulder as Josh bent forward, coughing because he'd been scolding his peers for a good five minutes straight before a fit overtook him.
He was always cold now. And always in pain. But all that was a helluva lot more bearable to seeing the team he'd helped pull together fall apart -- and all because they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that he would never step on that field alongside them again.
You get that through your heads. There's no miracle waiting in the wings. I'm not getting up from this goddamn chair and it's not right that you're not listening to your new Quarterback.
It was the one and only time he'd lost it in front of them all, feeling helpless and frustrated for a good twenty minutes until he'd finally calmed down.
I'm expendable, he'd whispered then, voice a little too loud in a room where everyone present was silent. You can't put that weight on your seniors and think that we'll always be around. There is a reason why we are a team and why we make it a point to groom the incoming kids.
Do you even know what I saw, stuck here at home? You could have won that game if you had just had a little more faith in Greg. He isn't me. And I don't want him to be me. )
Josh shuts his eyes now, shakes his head and stares down at the cigarette perched between his fingers. To the ash burning away at the end. ]
You still love him. [ Simple. Upfront. Factual. ] You're angry and you're hurt. But you still love him.