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 Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:17 pm
There was ever more to do, but this time, Faustite's goals were of a more critical sort. With his expedition into the Rift out of the way and the debrief long since over, he knew he had to address the leak on his hands. To do so would require a careful, calculated approach if he didn't want to tip off the mole to his awareness of them. That was a set of skills that Faustite hadn't needed to use in years.
He needed his head clear if he wanted to formulate a plan. Having had enough of his stuffy, windowless office, Faustite left behind the Dark Kingdom for the open-air, windy Destiny City night. The chill chased most indoors, where they would find warm solace against the dead of winter. Faustite, however, preferred the quietude that this solemn night offered. That the winds wicked his smoke away was another boon he'd learned to crave since the operation in the Rift. He'd started to suspect a problem with his cincher, so doing away with it for a time and venting all the smoke out of himself should bring him back to normal.
Or so he thought. He'd made it six buildings from the start of his maundering path, faltering on the long, flat run of an EconoLodge rooftop. His jog slowed to a miserable halt as he started coughing again. He sputtered out an interrupted what the ********> between episodes, finding it a great annoyance with no definitive source. It was an irritant, a weakness, and an opportunity if their mole had let slip that the General appeared to be sick.
But that opportunity soon turned to worry as he found he couldn't bring enough air back into his lungs to outpace his coughs. Doubling over helped, but it hadn't stopped his coughing session. Faustite started to feel overheated, too.
Finally he laid on his side, allowing his smoke to drift up perpendicular to his ribs where it was carried off by wending gusts, past the EconoLodge parapet. He sighed, able to breathe again. While he was grateful, he was equally uncertain if it was wise to continue laying there, looking like a garbage fire lit by a couple of ingrates with nothing but time on their hands. It could attract attention — in addition to or in spite of his Negaverse aura. He doubted he'd be up to fighting off whoever came with this ridiculous, inexplicable cough.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 11:15 pm
One of the distinct downsides to Reiki’s recent adventures into Mirrorspace was trying to find his way out of there and back to the mirror he’d actually entered from. So far, his track record had been……bad.
“Exactly zero correct answers,” bad.
Back on New Year’s, he hadn’t thought to question this nonsense. After all, exiting the mirror, Reiki had accidentally wound up back in his own room, rather than on the roof of some vintage late 19th/early 20th-century boarding house that had been converted into a local history museum. Who could argue with something so convenient falling into their lap like that? He’d made it home to his Best Girl sooner, and that was more important than anything else.
Or so it had seemed until this lack of direction when exiting Mirrorspace simply continued happening to him. Trying to look for any similarities between mirrors felt pointless; the entire landscape of Mirrorspace kept changing, outside of the little area around the Black Citadel and the largely empty, suspicious white powder-resembling baseball field he now had to call his own. (White Moon senshi get entire planets full of history, he thought glumly, enviously, for what must have been the twenty-seventh time in just the past few hours.) More than once, Reiki had felt certain that he’d picked the correct mirror to exit through, only to end up on the complete opposite side of town, usually in a neighborhood he didn’t know very well.
Last night, he’d at least gone into Mirrorspace fairly early and it had spit him out near his godfather’s place. A couple quick texts and Reiki had gotten welcomed in for dinner with Uncle Mitch and Sidney, something that he’d desperately needed.
Tonight, though, Reiki had no earthly idea where he’d wound up. Any of the innumerable dirty alleys in Destiny City, yes, but neither of the streets at the nearest intersection were ones he immediately recognized. On any day, that would have rankled, but today, the frustration felt magnified by a power of ten. Less the mild annoyance he thought of with “rankled,” but something deeper, hungrier, and more powerful, fueled not only by his base-level upset at the situation, but also by the nerve-gnawing, solipsistic loneliness that defined every jaunt into Mirrorspace.
Is it more “solipsistic” or “onanistic,” Reiki wondered as he hopped across roofs, looking for any landmarks he recognized. Checking the maps app on his phone would have required him to power down—he hadn’t yet managed to stop fumbling the thing with his gloves on, and the facial recognition lock had the same trouble with Murikabushi that it did with Miss Sayuri Disobedience or Reiki when his civvies makeup just went too extreme—so, he was just……heading in a direction and hoping that he turned up somewhere familiar, eventually.
Although the area around the EconoLodge was not, itself, familiar, as he paused to consider giving up and checking his phone, Reiki felt something that distinctly was: a Negaverse aura, all sharp and dark and distinctly not what Reiki felt like dealing with right now……at least, not until he noticed the wisps of ******** finally, he sighed in relief. Was it probably in his and Faustite’s mutual best interests to stay away from each other, just like Miss Jada had said back at the Farnsworth? Yes, definitely. But Reiki hopped onto the EconoLodge roof regardless, and reached into his subspace for tonight’s batch of “I really hope I get to apologize, but if I don’t, I’ll find someone else to gift them to and if the guy who owns Puppy Paws doesn’t know my personal name by now, it probably won’t take too long to happen” cupcakes.
……And then Reiki paused. He felt the aura. He saw the smoke. But where was the General…?
A fit of horrific coughs gave Reiki his answer, and he followed the sound around the parapet, to the figure of a boy slumped over, on his side. With the fire blazing in his core, it couldn’t be anyone else. Everything else forgotten, Reiki rushed to him, dropped to his knees at Faustite’s side. He managed enough restraint to set the cupcakes aside rather than throwing them, but that was apparently the extent of Reiki’s common sense right now.
“Faustite,” he said gently, tentatively, and placing a hand on the shoulder of someone whom Reiki knew full well was literally on fire. Which, okay, didn’t feel great, but Reiki could be quick, so it was probably fine, right? Just a careful jostle, to see if he reacted, and something to reassure Faustite that he didn’t mean any harm—“Faustite, it’s me, it’s……”
Reiki pursed his lips. He could’ve just said Murikabushi. Probably should have. But right now, for no reason Reiki could articulate, the bone-deep feeling of That’s not my name came to him bolded, in all-caps, with a middle-school edgelord on too much Monster Energy Drink amount of exclamation points and asterisks around both the “NOT” and the “MY” so no one could possibly misunderstand his meaning—and that feeling refused to let him say the easy thing.
“It’s the ridiculous, overly-talkative, self-torturing, moronic Mirror Thing who never listens to you.”
A characterization of him that, at least on one point, he arguably undermined just now.…… Not that Reiki got to enjoy that thought for very long. Wincing, gasping, unable to continue ignoring the whole Faustite is literally on fire thing, Reiki jerked his hand back and dove for a nearby pile of snow.
“I’m still here!” Hissing from the pain, Reiki plunged the hand that had been touching Faustite’s shoulder into the snow. It was cold running water you were supposed to get in moments like this, right? Well, snow would have to do. And oh, it did feel better. Not that it feeling better stopped him from spitting out, “Still here, still concerned about you, ********>, ow.…”
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 4:04 am
Faustite heard the voice while he laid in the snow, trying to gauge if his coughing came from too much smoke. The hand on his shoulder startled him bodily. Head turned, his squinted up with pure, unadulterated consternation at the concerned figure above him that he recognized without any sort of preamble.
But he'd gotten a preamble nonetheless, after said individual let go of him to scoot their scorched hand into a snowbank. Faustite kept staring at him silently, expression unchanged. Then he rolled onto his stomach. Then, like a respectable General of the Negaverse, he pushed himself up on his hands and knees and started crawling toward said person. So far, so good — he hadn't coughed yet. Even if he didn't particularly care for the feeling of cold and wet coming through the knees of his pants, he'd take it over coughing until his throat bled, or suffocating on his own smoke.
The cupcakes got an equally suspicious look. Then his countenance shifted to resigned, if grimly so.
When he reached Murikabushi-but-he-doesn't-introduce-himself-anymore, Faustite gave him a tentative, if gentle, poke. No, that felt solid. And it wasn't Headache — Headache moved too slowly to be anything more than a prom queen atop a float doing that stupid radar dish wave. But if it wasn't a hallucination and wasn't Headache, then what else could it be? What else was adept enough at mimicry that it could regurgitate a Dark Mirror aura alongside Murikabushi's sass? And why wasn't he saying his name? Was that some kind of constraint to imitating him?
"Thought you weren't real," he explained. "Or that I'd died. Luck's never this good." Faustite drew himself up enough to sit on his haunches next to maybe-but-maybe-not Murikabushi. He coughed, something milder and generally annoying (and left him glad that it was so much milder during his debrief a few weeks ago). "Fire's still hot," He volunteered, in case probably-Murikabushi had forgotten.
Faustite's hand moved to catch something out of the air, then hurriedly tossed a handful of Silvadene 1% cream packets into the snow next to the boy. It was then that he noticed a difference in outfit. He had long, reasonably annoying, translucent sleeves now. His aura had grown stronger, too.
He risked standing, then cast a glance back at the cupcakes that were also not a hallucination. Murikabushi must've been on his way back from a bakery, though that seemed like an ill-thought-out idea when he projected an aura that said 'please come punch me in the face. Please just cave my ******** teeth in'.
"I'm fine, by the way." He coughed again, something hoarse and dry. "No need to —" more coughing — "concern yourself with someone who's —" he paused, waiting for another cough — "basically your enemy."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 6:40 am
If not for the ow ow ******** ow bad idea Bad Idea BAD IDEA pain of having touched Faustite at all, then willingly holding on besides, Reiki probably wouldn’t have felt like everything was, all of a sudden, deciding to Happen. Because, realistically, not terribly much was happening. Faustite moved over to him—but not in any way that Reiki thought would indicate health, wellness, or anything of the sort.
Faustite poked him—which mostly resulted in Reiki wrinkling his nose and wondering what that had been for. Which, fortunately, Faustite explained……for all the explanation earned him a bemused frown. “Not that my opinion means anything to you,” Reiki deadpanned, “but last I checked? Yes, I’m still real. As for you? I’d offer to check your pulse, but……” He shrugged, somewhat awkwardly, but sue him, he didn’t want to take his hand out of the snow just yet. “To make more than one emotional, impulsive lapse in judgment like that, I’d need to be as suicidal as you like ascribing to me. Which I’m not.”
Thanks for asking, he left unsaid. Even if it wasn’t terribly cruel, in terms of things Reiki could have said to Faustite, kicking him while he was coughing like this didn’t feel right. Didn’t feel like what he would’ve done, if he could have always lived up to the standard of the Reiki who Ojiisan and Cersei believed he was.… Plus, a casual, caustic aside out of Reiki had set Faustite off last time, and right now, he wasn’t doing anything objectionable, as he had before, acting like there’d been something wrong with Reiki comforting Tama.
Far from objectionable, Faustite was……offering Reiki a kindness? Well, that……tracked with some parts of Faustite’s behavior, Reiki guessed (letting him work with Tama, trying to assure him somehow about how Space-Buns and Albite had acted toward him at the Farnsworth). Not so much with other pieces of it, though (how working with Tama had ended, why Reiki had been at the Farnsworth to begin with, all the insults, the constant demands for Reiki to go away, and general way of indicating that he preferred not having to deal with Reiki).
Thankfully, Reiki hadn’t done the stupid thing with his dominant hand, so it wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been to read the instructions on the packets of Silvadene cream (seemed fairly straightforward), then fumble in his subspace for a towel and his mixed box of bandages. Still sort of a mess, but fragile human skin plus half-youma flames, he’d earned a mess. Peeling off his glove to get a better look at where the damage had fallen (largely on the fingers; made sense, they’d gotten the most exposure) and how he’d need to arrange things when he dressed the wound, Reiki considered whether or not to say anything about that coughing. On one hand, maybe giving Faustite what he (said he) wanted was the best way to avoid any further explosions between them. On the other, Reiki kept guessing at what Faustite wanted, and he kept guessing wrong, so what the ******** did he know.
And on the squirming, rancid tentacle, Reiki didn’t want to let Faustite have the last word. “You don’t sound fine,” he offered before biting on one end of a packet, tugging it open as carefully as possible under the circumstances so he wouldn’t waste the cream. “Though, in fairness, I undermined my own right to say anything by, hmm……” A silent moment to ponder his phrasing gave way to begrudging acceptance. Shaking his head and rolling his eyes (at himself, at his choices, at his heart and its refusal to mind its own business when he literally had not asked), Reiki sighed. “Yeah, there’s no way to make what I did sound less stupid, this time. But for what it’s worth, this particular stupid choice was motivated by wanting to make sure you were okay. A b***h prioritized that over having the good judgment to not touch someone who’s on fire.”
Something something, setting oneself on fire to keep others warm. Something something, don’t do that. Something something, none of those thoughts were helping Reiki get the cream and bandages wrapped around his burns, so he’d deal with them later, if at all.
“The cupcakes were for you, by the way,” he said, looking at his work on his hand rather than at Faustite. “Or someone on your team if you don’t like them. Very ‘I’m sorry for whatever happened after last time because I don’t enjoy the thought of you suffering, but I’m not sorry for refusing to lie down and let you kill me and Tama. Anyway, since you go apoplectic whenever I apologize for something, here, have these instead.’”
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 7:23 am
It didn't help any argument when a more vigorous coughing fit cropped up when Murikabushi started verbally refuting him. Too busy was he with leaning over and coughing into his elbow to block the smoke that he couldn't meet the boy's sass with didn't ask for your opinion or you're just prejudiced against half-youma. Instead, he was catching his breath as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. His ribs had begun to hurt. His throat ached.
This was bullshit. And so were the cupcake-apologies, though Faustite could never convince himself to leave food behind. While he had his free moments of walking upright without coughing an industrial plant's worth of smoke into the air, he picked up the plastic box of cupcakes and dismissed it to his subspace before it could melt in his hands.
"Why do you care?" He asked as he turned back to the Mirror Senshi. "You hate the Negaverse, we never meet under good circumstances. Seen you with the White Moon; take it you'd rather throw in with their lot. Seems you should be happy that I'm —" he paused, coughed — "evicting my lungs." Those were all superficial observations, too. Simple inferences that hadn't taken into account sequestering the boy in the Farnsworth or mustering up the impetus to give him the very literal third degree after he'd dropped off Tama for their little Senshi-Mauvian powwow. Which was still nauseating when he thought about it, and he didn't want to tempt fate by getting queasy. He was certain Murikabushi would find his half-human rendition of vomit to be entirely repugnant, and he didn't want to hear about that on top of his character flaws.
He felt another cough in the barrel, so he started pacing. Started thinking that maybe there wasn't enough airflow, though his first fit came on when he was already running at speed. It had to be that, right? Or something he ate, or ******** around with the crucible gave him the unwelcome opportunity to experience human sickness again.
"Most people don't put their hand on a hot stove to check that the stove's okay. Especially if they dislike the brand."amorremanet i messed up the line about the white moon crying
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 1:49 pm
Faustite’s invective crashed into him like a waterfall and at least ten times colder. The coughing still sounded nasty. Still yanked, hard, at Reiki’s heart-strings and at the exact impulse that had driven him to ignore good sense and go touch Faustite in the first place—but a television static feeling rushed through him as he tried to both stay focused on his hand and wracking his brain for which specific incidents, if any, Faustite thought he meant.
……At the very least, he’d racked up a lot of visits to Kerberos’s bench. But—ugh. Whatever. Reiki would look into it later. Maybe. After he either got himself out of that accusation or probably got set on fire.
In the meantime, Faustite started pacing like he had before, and Reiki’s breath kept hitching. If it had been from the pain in the burn, or from the “this will hurt but only so you can heal” discomfort of getting it dressed, that would’ve been one thing, but the worst of it came from Reiki’s chest. Reminded him of all the times when Certain Exes Whose Names Didn’t Deserve Mentioning had accused him of wanting to cheat with Levi, and in his heart, Reiki hadn’t been able to deny that, but he hadn’t known what alleged “evidence” Greg had meant to hold against him this time.
Part of him had always wanted to push back like a Hell-cat when Greg got like that. The same part of Reiki, right now, wanted so badly to shout back about Whose fault *IS* it that we never meet under good circumstances? Which one of us came in hot with calling the other one “Mirror Thing” and giving him orders like I was obligated to respect some belligerent a*****e I didn’t know just because your menagerie of cute sluts all think the sun shines out your a**?
But Reiki could not let himself do that. Would only exacerbate things without helping anybody worth a damn.
So, Reiki tried to smother any emotion that dared rear its head. Going cold had never helped in those situations with Greg, probably wouldn’t help now either—not that anything Reiki did ever helped with Faustite—but hands trembling and chest shuddering as if the cold bothered him, Reiki tried to will himself into feeling nothing.
“You have no. idea. what you’re talking about,” he said, voice low and far more stable-sounding than Reiki felt. “My best friend in all of this is a Negaverse senshi. Started with Order, too. Came into his own and found love in your ranks.” Didn’t matter, right this second, that Monoceros was planning to get out or that he’d come into his own by deciding that, despite what his romantic heart wanted with the guy he’d fallen for, he couldn’t stay with the Negaverse. Nothing Reiki said was factually inaccurate.
“The one from Order I see most is Kerberos, and he literally saved my life back in August. Have some sympathy for him; he probably doesn’t want to deal with me any more than you do, but I owe him, so here we are.” Not that Kerberos had done anything to indicate as much, but the fear remained: Kerberos surely had better things to do than put up with Reiki tagging along behind him like the world’s stupidest lost puppy, and someday, he’d probably get tired of pretending otherwise.
With a soft huff, Reiki curled and uncurled his fingers a few times, testing the bandages to make sure they were fastened well enough without cutting off circulation or completely removing any ability to use his right hand. Better to use it as little as possible, sure, but in case he needed to use it, he could. At least almost two decades of textile arts experience had taught him how to care for injuries in the hands. If only tending to the burn would’ve made everything else stop hurting, as if Reiki had given it permission to do that.
“Even if I hated you half as much as you seem to think, I—?” Burying his lips in the back of his left hand didn’t happen fast enough to hide the sharp inhale. ********. “…That doesn’t mean I want you to suffer. Or that I’d want to leave you to die. Neither of those things would make me happy. Likewise, though, any positive feelings toward you don’t obligate me to let you push me around because you had a bad day, or because other people have treated you like garbage, or because you’re sick and so offended that I’d treat you like a person instead of a stove. Or—I don’t know, whatever goes on in your mind.”
Sure fine, Faustite was literally on fire, Reiki saw the connection—but since when did stoves possess enough sapience to be obstreperous jackasses on a level like his? Come on. This was simple logic.Strickenized ahh, it’s okay! Andesine actually snitched on him to the intel database recently, so I totally bought it. But fixed! heart
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 6:40 am
"S'why I'm trying to make sense of it," he replied. He knew he didn't know this senshi's life, and by making implications of what he'd seen, Murikabushi had given him a margin more of it. No names but for Kerberos, but that contact wasn't new to him. He hadn't seen any reports written by any Negaverse senshi in the Database; seems that name would remain a mystery for a while longer. Someone who'd gotten into a relationship on their side, and there were too many for Faustite to narrow the list of possible suspects down with that little tidbit.
The sense of duty always took him for a ride, however. It was so antithetical to how he dealt with the enemy that it forever gave him pause, and his look of consternation grew before he finally forced himself to suppress it. It was admirable, but if Faustite let himself dwell on it, he'd be feeding feelings for this boy like he fed sticks of butter to his flames (sometimes — the greasy aftermath made for terrible grate cleaning).
"Hate your Court, not you," Faustite clarified quietly. A couple half-suppressed coughs escaped him, their smoke exiting out the corner of his mouth.
Murikabushi served his purpose as a distraction from the spitting anger of seeing a senshi become a Princess in front of him. Spared him from having to process whatever the ******** happened with that blight fight, with the whole of the White Moon group vanishing on them before he could give Ida the hottest congratulatory hug of her lifetime, from having to organize that chaotic ******** enough to write a coherent report on it, and from all the other s**t happening in his life. That use was short-lived, and they'd failed to get along since. Despite his team thinking it was a helpful idea to find a Dark Mirror ally in Murikabushi.
He could blame their second incident on Tama getting under his skin. On both of them, truly; if they'd kept to business without talking s**t, he could've sat through that whole production without vomiting too much at Tama's ******** up cuddle session. It wasn't so, however; he was instead reminded of all the ways he fell short, like he was still under Schörl, but those two lacked her power and her remarkable ability to instill terror.
With a sigh, he finally admitted it. "You're a good person. Don't know why you're with a Court that defended and harbored a murderer." Their grossest crime was their own ineptitude, for even after coming to understand the whole situation, they had simply lost the guilty party. And apparently they couldn't summon him the way that Faustite could summon a delinquent Lieutenant, which was a complete oversight on part of their governing body of power.
Far be it for Faustite to tell them how to be more efficient, however. That was asking for more of a headache than they already gave him.
As he listened to the boy, Faustite coughed violently into his elbow. Seemed the wind wasn't helping, which meant they were back to no leads. Like usual, being part youma entailed more unknowns than they ever understood.
When he could take in a breath without coughing again, Faustite responded, casting only cursory glances back at Murikabushi as he paced. "White Moon treat me like a pity case or a subhuman thing that needs to be exterminated. Thought you'd see me the same way, since you've been around them. That I wasn't anything more than a sentient stove or a crazy, pitiable creature to be nursed back to the state of being human." And that admission was as much an apology as Faustite knew how to give.
"Know you don't have to listen to me," he added, gesturing as he went on. "That you came to see if I was okay —" He coughed, then sighed. "Thanks."
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:00 pm
……Well, this was going differently from how Reiki had expected.
Hostility with Faustite made sense. Mutual indignation with him made sense. Trading barbs with him made sense, seeing as it was one of the most reliable things they’d done since Faustite had first walked into Reiki’s life.
This thing of talking like reasonably well-adjusted people when neither of them really qualified, and Reiki only passed with most people because he had the benefit of humanity? Didn’t make sense at all—especially not when Faustite wanted to say that he was trying to make sense out of Reiki’s anything, and……actually behaved in ways consistent with that.
Taking a deep breath, being careful of his right hand, Reiki pushed himself up off the ground, onto the wall that nominally made it more difficult for people to jump from the roof. As far as “Not what I planned on, but I can work with this” situations went, he could’ve done a lot worse than Faustite acting less aggressively allergic to Reiki’s presence.
What he felt when Faustite called him a good person, Reiki could deal with later. Firmly future Reiki’s problem. Sure, he could make out the impulse to self-deprecate and argue that he wasn’t, actually (good people, he was pretty sure, did not list “Order senshi get entire planets full of history, what the ********, I want that too” as one of their major arguments for why Order senshi clearly got the best deal out of any other faction). Plus, the confusion as to whether or not Faustite meant that as a compliment when others in the Negaverse certainly would not have (but that was them, Reiki reminded himself, and they were not Faustite). But as for anything else……?
Future Reiki’s problem. Categorically so.
“Well, seems it’s my turn to be ignorant,” he said after some consideration, setting his right hand palm-up in his lap. “I have no idea what you’re talking about with the murderer? But I also can’t say I’m shocked or anything. It makes as much sense as people with Order treating you like some kind of project for them to fix, with the ‘win’ state being humanity—as if they don’t have non-human senshi with Order.”
Add it to the rather lengthy list of questions he was developing for his Court and pretty much everyone in it.
“I mean, insofar as I can tell, my Court’s mission statement is about wanting to save people—from what, exactly? Who knows. Good question. It could be any major existential threat, because the bottom line is that ‘saving people’ is a big talking point here. And our plan for doing this is……feeding energy to Mirrorspace. To allegedly make it self-sustaining. Which……?” If the upward inflection, the arch of his brows, and the overly indulgent, “oh, sweetie, you tried” color of his faux-smile didn’t spell out Reiki’s incredulity, then the shake of his head probably did. “Can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t see that happening.
“Plus, there’s the bigger, fundamental issue of how……okay, so when some billionaire ******** says that he wants to build an anti-armageddon bunker, or work on colonizing Mars, or whatever, it is generally understood—at least, among the people I respect—that he is full of s**t. It’s understood that, even if he could make his asinine plans work in real life, the vast majority of us would be absolutely <********>, because he would only save some elite minority of people who think their wealth makes them the best of humanity, even though it’s inherited and statistically speaking, their families probably stole it. It’s understood that this plan sucks and is stupid and only exists to gratify his ego.
“But when we want to propose basically the exact same stupid plan, just with magic? Suddenly, it’s supposed to be great, and brilliant, and the most fantabulously perfect thing since Judy Garland’s iconic Carnegie Hall performance of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow.’ And this hypocrisy makes any logical sense……” Shrugging, Reiki made a sarcastic, aggressively noncommittal sound. “Because of reasons, I guess? And everyone’s just okay with this? b***h, please. If this had been anywhere in my pitch session……”
A wrinkle of the nose. A roll of the eyes. Honesty might’ve had its merits, but damn if it didn’t hurt his pride right now. “Eugh, I still might’ve wound up here. But at least then, it would’ve only been because I’m stupid, and impulsive, and I wanted a boy who’s too good for me. Rather than because I made dubious choices to impress said boy and was not briefed on what being a Dark Mirror senshi actually entailed until after I’d been through the Mirror.
“Which isn’t even getting into the fact that Mirrorspace itself is the most godforsaken, miserable s**t-hole I have ever visited. Everything about that place is a cheap, misshapen facsimile of something real, but we’re supposed to unquestioningly trust that it even can become self-sustaining. Like, how? Mirrorspace is an acid trip vision of Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault ******** Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in a dingy basement, directed by Ingmar Bergman. It absolutely repels actual reality. And we’re supposed to ignore people we could help right now in order to cultivate it? Even if our nonsense trainwreck plan could work, have we no concept of triage?”
With another shrug and a few deep breaths to reclaim some approximate sense of calm, Reiki kneaded his left index and middle fingers at his temple. “Point being: I’m sorry, Faustite. I don’t know what you mean with the Court harboring a murderer? But I believe it. Pretending something like that never happened sounds exactly like my understanding of our entire MO. Because pretending everything’s fine while the house burns down always works out so well.”
Which was probably enough for Reiki to shut up already. Him talking too much generally had a tendency to irritate Faustite something awful. But……just in case Faustite needed to hear it, Reiki softened and added, “Whatever you do or don’t want to explain? That’s your call and I respect it. If you want to talk, I’ll listen. But it’s okay if it’s too much, or if you just don’t want to. Especially with you being sick.”
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Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2023 8:00 am
Faustite's gaze flickered down, then out toward the horizon. Giving up on pacing, since it hadn't mattered how he moved, he lowered himself into a seated position on the rooftop parapet. Didn't matter if it was dangerous — Faustite was sure that, even if Murikabushi suddenly went ballistic after hearing the story, Faustite could sacrifice throw him off the roof without too much trouble.
He coughed, heavily, smoke pouring out of his hands while his breath came in hoarse barks. When that finished, he waved the smoke away. Hunched forward, rested his forearms on his knees and let the rest of the smoke vent out his back where it ambled toward the night sky.
If it could be called a story, Faustite was reticent to tell much of it. "Befriended a Dark Mirror Senshi — Sinope. Thought I could trust him, but he caught feelings for me." Faustite threw his hands up, dramatically splaying his fingers. "Somehow. Had a boyfriend then, but this Dark Mirror kept trying to drive him off. Told him I was mixed up in some shady organization. Got Rowan digging for answers when I didn't want him involved in any of this. Then it escalated, kept escalating, 'til I lost some family. Had to drag my boyfriend into the Negaverse or kill him, had to change my identity.
"Court protected him at the time. Thought a cease and desist was good enough. Guess they figured out the truth, after a while. Saw Acubens and she apologized for it. Said they were looking for him, but he disappeared.
"Hard to let go of that. To abstain from blaming the whole Court for their ignorance and ineptitude," he finished, glowering with a burnt-orange huff.
He'd never asked for the Court's mission statement — hadn't given it any thought when he had contacts in it. But with their intentions laid as bare as Murikabushi understood them, it only made much sense in the context of the Negaverse's goals. But even in that context —
"Save them from the war," Faustite suggested. "War's never ending. Can't follow you into a place like that. Might match up with most of you being noncombative." But he didn't know what sort of hunger Mirrorspace had. Didn't know what drove it, or how much energy it would need to become this perpetual location that Murikabushi mentioned. They gathered energy for two distinctly different purposes, and Faustite likewise struggled to understand how giving Mirrorspace energy wasn't pouring sand through a sieve.
"Look." Faustite shifted, straightened up, angled his knees to the side. "Youmafied when I was fifteen. Didn't get to Economics class. Couldn't tell you anything about how money equates to magic."
He remained silent as he mulled over Murikabushi's insistence that he was stupid for joining a faction he didn't understand. It wasn't terribly different from how he joined the Negaverse, though he had always thought that the choice between joining or death wasn't a real choice in the matter. Seemed strange to be so vocal against the Negaverse, as he looked back on it. Mouthy Lieutenant insisting that they didn't have any morals. Couldn't read the room. Couldn't comprehend the dangers. Murikabushi's situation was a touch like that, though perhaps the danger wasn't so obvious.
He was right in his characterization of Mirrorspace, of the few times that Faustite had the very displeasure of being in its clutches. His lip twitched into a frown at the thought of it — all that blank space, those lazy wefts of smoke tracing their way through white nothingness. Meaningless interpretations of objects that were never really there. Passing through mirror upon mirror upon mirror, going nowhere in that endless, disorienting dimension. Feeling like falling through water.
Though the description roused a small chuckle out of him.
"… Do you like being alive?" Faustite's attention lit on Murikabushi. "Serious question. Not a threat," he added as an afterthought. "Been to Mirrorspace before. Mirrorscape, too. Don't think it's as benign as you imply."
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:00 pm
As he listened, Reiki couldn’t shake the awareness of how little he understood Faustite. He didn’t understand how Faustite had behaved at the Farnsworth on the night Ida had popped her princess wings, or why snarking at Faustite—hardly unheard of between them—had made him go off as badly as he had. He didn’t understand why Faustite now apparently trusted him enough to open up about this Sinope character when a Negaverse General didn’t owe a Dark Mirror senshi anything, not least when the Court had ******** up so badly at giving Faustite any semblance of justice in all that mess with this Sinope character and what he’d done to Faustite……how he’d wronged Faustite.
Smoothing his good hand down his skirts for want of something to do with it, Reiki could admit: he understood basically nothing about Faustite……but he wanted to understand.
Somewhat more importantly, one sentiment stood out in Reiki’s heart, insisting that someone needed to say it, even if Reiki couldn’t be sure how it would go over: “…I’m sorry,” he told Faustite gently, looking at him despite the impulse that sounded like Onibaba-sama, his Mom’s mother, snapping at him to remember his place and show some respect. “Not as an acceptance of blame, just? Expression of sympathy.…
“I’m sorry for what this Sinope character did to you, to your Rowan, to your family. I’m sorry that he—what? Acted like his feelings for you were somehow your fault? Or else just made them into your problem as if you were the one with any responsibility for how he felt? I’m sorry that he, from the sound of things, murdered your family and whoever in the Court knew, they just…? Acted as if his sins against you and yours didn’t matter as long as they could protect another Mirror senshi?”
Even if Acubens hadn’t known back then, had she actually asked? Had she spotted any loose threads in the story and if so, had she done her due diligence in tugging on them? Or had she just……smiled that big, eager smile of hers, accepted some half-assed bullshit story, and told Sinope that everything would be okay?
“And—for what it’s worth? I’m not saying that to get anybody else’s absolution, I just……” Wish that your past had been kinder to you. Wish that the world in general had been kinder to you. Wish that anything of material significance—Reiki shook his head, short and quick, trying to jerk himself back on-task. “You didn’t deserve what Sinope did to you. You deserved—still deserve—a better answer than the Court’s given you. And if he’s run off to god-knows-where, maybe there isn’t anything materially significant to be done anymore, but……it’s not fair to ask you to magically get over something like that.
“Not that I have any remotely comparable experiences,” Reiki added before he could think to stop himself, “but…? My dad and his sister at least genuinely apologized for all their fights that sent me running away for the night when I was a teenager. She apologized for repeatedly putting me in ******** up positions either because of her drinking. He apologized for taking her head off when his anger, while understandable, wasn’t helping anybody. She’s sober now, and it’s about a decade since they fought so badly that I couldn’t be in the same house and had to book it to a friend’s place, outrageously late on a school night.”
More often than not, that friend had been Sibyl, but even trying to meet Faustite’s show of vulnerability with one in turn, Reiki didn’t want to name his drag mom. Didn’t want to name his blood family either. Didn’t want to give away too much that could have pointed Faustite to the real boy behind the pretty costume and the delusions of being a decent senshi.
“From what you’re saying, though, and correct me if I’m wrong? But it sounds like the only thing you’ve gotten out of anybody has been Acubens apologizing far too little, far too late?” He looked to Faustite for confirmation, denial, or a refusal to answer. Any of those options sounded equally likely for him right now. “And no, no one ever promised life would be fair—but that doesn’t make it right for anyone to treat something as traumatic as this as flippantly as the Court did and then ask you to just be okay with that.”
Argument would probably come from all that, based on precedent. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe whatever illness had Faustite down tonight would prevent him from getting quite as hacked off as he had back when Reiki had spouted off at him about gender bullshit? Overall, though, the General didn’t seem to appreciate being told that he’d deserved better than any of the seemingly untold millions of terrible things that had been done to him, or that someone other than one of his cute sluts wished that he didn’t hurt so much.
……But still. What could Reiki do except try to offer Faustite kindness?
(Well, plenty of options existed, technically. But the thought of doing any of them to Faustite made Reiki feel sick, especially when Faustite was clearly in deeper pain than whatever he felt from those nasty coughs, and had ostensibly been in that pain for so long that he’d either ceased to think his hurt mattered or forgotten what living without it felt like. Selling his soul to some weird Mirror had not included any clauses about making Reiki compromise everything about himself as a person, and Mirrorspace could go ******** itself if it expected that of him.)
“As for your question? Life certainly has its garbage moments, but yeah. On the whole, I like being alive and would rather be alive than dead.” Reaching for his bangs again, Reiki just barely caught himself, kept himself from using the scorched hand to push them off his face. “Apologies for the abstruse description? But I didn’t mean to make Mirrorspace out to be benign. Quite the opposite, actually. I can get in the weeds about the specific references there?
“But the bottom line is that Mirrorspace is a dimension that clearly has some kind of sentience, watches people like the b*****d child of Santa Claus and Big Brother, and does the same clingy, possessive bullshit my ex did after he started cheating on me. But as far as I can tell? None of it is real unto itself, it’s just a copy of a copy of an idea about what reality might theoretically resemble. And trying to get any answers from it, to quote Bergman in The Seventh Seal, ‘is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but who never comes, no matter how loudly you call.’”
Or, in Reiki’s case, how many times you subjected Mirrorspace to whichever song was stuck in your head today.… It had been Reba McEntire tonight, “Fancy,” and at the moment, Reiki hoped that Mirrorspace had found it more annoying than charming. At least the feelings could be mutual, that way.
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:29 am
Faustite set his jaw as he listened. He didn't understand Murikabushi. Faustite was convinced he would never understand Murikabushi. Whatever the boy's life experiences were, they came from two sufficiently different lives that Faustite figured they would seldom see eye-to-eye on anything. Initially, he thought that maybe Murikabushi couldn't read the room. But, the more this happened, the more he suspected that Murikabushi either never encountered someone quite like Faustite and was resorting to what worked for him in the past, or this was what was expected of him in similar situations.
Faustite had often been told that he was difficult to understand and exceedingly opaque. Heliodor begrudged him for it for years, nagged him to open up more. To try. To give others a chance. But Heliodor had much more perspective on Faustite from the outset, even if he didn't recognize Faustite for who he was.
Even if he chased a boy that Faustite explained, repeatedly, was dead.
Still. What the ******** was he supposed to do with this? "Didn't explain it to you for you to do — that," he finished impotently, waving his hands at the boy in his frustration. "You didn't know what I was referencing. Now you do. Don't need you to do. that." Whatever that was. He didn't know. Couldn't characterize it.
He sighed tremulously, burying his face in his hands. Murikabushi was giving him some of his damage, and Faustite didn't know what to do with that, either. Did he want condolences? Sympathies? Empathies, whatever the ******** the difference was between those two? Faustite felt like this conversation went down better with alcohol, where Faustite could grouse and complain and drunkenly say <******** the world and everyone in it and Murikabushi could do… Whatever. Defend this rotten shithole of a place, commiserate, sound off at him for being a d**k. Didn't matter, because they would be drunk, and all that nonsense washed off easier when it was exchanged in the context of alcohol.
Murikabushi was right, the experiences they described weren't comparable. While Murikabushi seemed to have a handle on it, Faustite felt completely out of his element. This wasn't a contentious conversation spoken around someone else's virtue signaling. They weren't talking with their fists. Faustite wasn't beating a knight to death with their own weapon.
… Faustite desperately wanted to beat a knight to death with their own weapon right now.
He wiped his nose. Sighed. "People are ******** garbage," he tried in return. It didn't sound nearly as elegant as anything Murikabushi had said. "Even when they apologize. Like that's supposed to exonerate them of all the damage they do. Just laundering their own consciences of their past misdeeds." If he had more to say, his thoughts had gotten avalanched by an incoming coughing fit, and he bent double to dry hack every cubic centimeter of smoke out of his lungs again.
Faustite stood, then, because leaving was an unfailingly helpful option when conversations became uncomfortable — though it was regrettable that this one's discomforts were his own unwitting doing — but the rooftop spun and Murikabushi slid comically to the side. Deciding it was dangerous to wander off in a fit while he didn't know which way was forward, Faustite sat back down again in an annoyed huff.
Perhaps the worst of it was that Murikabushi was a sweet boy. Faustite liked sweet boys. He liked them better when they didn't know anything about him, so they couldn't look at him as a pity case, and he liked them better when they weren't dressed in the Dark Mirror's ugly bullshit. It was easy to like Murikabushi, and that was a problem. He didn't know how to navigate that and this and trying to recruit this boy into being a favorable contact in the Court. He wished he could've passed that job to Fafnir and washed his hands of it, for he lacked the experience to navigate any of this.
And he knew that. However, he didn't know what to do about that.
Thoroughly frustrated, Faustite latched his claws onto the edge of the parapet and locked his elbows. Thin grey streaks of keratinous dust marked where those claws had been when he tightened his grip on the concrete.
Whatever. The Mirrorspace conversation was easier to focus on. He spoke in a raspy voice that occasionally tried to abort a word or two. "Wouldn't know some of those references.
"It's sentient," he confirmed as he stared at the boy's feet. "Sucked a lot of people into itself, once. Don't know if that was because the Court didn't keep up with their dues to it, or because it finally had enough energy to do that. Didn't matter if they were White Moon senshi, knights, Negaverse, normal people. Dragged them in and drained them, then put them through some kind of death gauntlet." He expected that anyone who fell was gone now. Seemed real enough to him.
"Least your Court could do is keep it at bay."amorremanet have a sleep deprived insomnia tag that probably doesn't make any sense and i will probably regret later heart
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2023 4:57 pm
For all he didn’t understand Faustite on the whole, Reiki did feel a pang of recognition over some of Faustite’s behaviors, over how he responded to certain things.… For example, the confusion and irritation over someone else being sorry that he had been wronged and not trying to seek absolution on anyone else’s behalf about it. Not quite as much of an argument as Reiki had expected out of Faustite, no, but somewhat more depressingly, everything the General had to say or do perfectly aligned with Reiki’s sense that Faustite had been in pain for so long, he’d either stopped seeing it as a matter of any significance or forgotten what living without it felt like. Worse, both of those things could’ve been true.
………Both being true made a truly upsetting amount of sense.
Of more immediately pressing concern, as well, the concern sparked by Faustite’s responses to Reiki’s attempt at sympathy paled in comparison to how unwell Reiki felt, watching the boy cough like a cat with a hairball that wouldn’t come up, watching him spew smoke like a factory working overtime, watching him try to leave only to lurch and flop back down like someone had cut his strings without notice and left him to figure out being a real boy all on his own. Whatever Faustite’s emotional damage was, Reiki may not have had any ability to help, but he could still do something by choosing not to treat Faustite like garbage for no reason, regardless of how confusing he seemed to find that choice.
But Reiki barely knew what to do for human illnesses, aside from “treat with Dayquil and chicken-soup until it gets better or requires medical attention.” Even if Faustite had been human, whatever was wrong with him was clearly well beyond that.
“I don’t disagree,” Reiki said to Faustite’s concerns about Mirrorspace. “Most of the others I know are all newbie-level senshi still. Have to wonder if they stay that way on purpose, so they can use it as an excuse to avoid taking any responsibility for Mirrorspace and its bullshit. Very much like…” Pressing his good hand to his face in faux-shock, Reiki affected a dainty, higher-pitched voice and an accent that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be more Blanche DuBois, Blanche Devereaux, or Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham. “‘Oh, merciful heavens! I can’t even visit Mirrorspace on my own. However could such a pitiful, low-level senshi as I possibly do anything to help’—I don’t know, Jessica, but you could try making a ******** effort, maybe?”
Either way, Faustite’s story about what Mirrorspace had done before sounded like a compelling argument in favor of just……giving Mirrorspace what it wanted, whenever it next whined at Reiki about him not visiting since the day before. Faustite was right: the Dark Mirror Court did need to be responsible for Mirrorspace, to keep it at bay so it wouldn’t devour and drain hapless innocents. So, maybe visiting that godforsaken s**t-hole made Reiki feel cold, uneasy, and miserable, but……better him than Faustite, who had been through more than enough and had both a team and a harem of cute sluts waiting for him at home.
Better him than Albite, who was maybe? the Prime Cute Slut in Faustite’s harem? the Alpha Cute Slut? Moon of Faustite’s life, maybe? Whatever he was, Albite had too many important things to worry about, couldn’t afford getting sucked into Mirrorspace out of nowhere.
Better him than Kerberos, who’d also been through more than enough in his time, who had important work to do both in Destiny City and on his planet with its bioluminescent bunnies, who was an actual competent senshi, and who actually managed to help anybody with this magical girl business.
Maybe that was Reiki’s true calling as a magical girl: venturing into Mirrorspace, no matter how unpleasant it always wound up being, because it was better for him to endure that journey than to let Mirrorspace force it on someone else.
“And the references……” Reiki pouted briefly, more at himself than anything else. ******** pretentious nonsense description of his Court’s pretentious nonsense dimension. “Yeah, not knowing them is fair. If you youmafied at fifteen, I doubt you got to the class about dead French philosophers who have intriguing ideas but reading them will make you want to gouge your eyes out with a tetanus-infested spoon because French sentences run on longer than I do. Foucault’s better than Baudrillard, because he had enough good, homosexual sense to not get too much into metaphysical arguments like ‘Reality is dead and human society has killed it.’ But Foucault still has his moments that just make a b***h go ‘You wrote this after spending the night with a cute twink you just met, some poppers, and a bottle of liquor, didn’t you, Michel.’
“And—okay, I’m sorry if I’m about to be really rude?” Reiki held up both hands, though he tried not to flex his scorched fingers too much. “I’ve been trying to avoid that, but…? Standing up just made you keel over and not asking is starting to itch. So, what’s going on with……” Reiki gestured vaguely, waving his good hand up and down in Faustite’s general direction. “The smokestack impression and coughing like your lungs are trying to escape through your throat? Are you…” No, stop. He’s obviously not okay. What kind of asinine ******** question—but what else is there to say— Reiki sighed.
Instead of asking any number of useless and potentially deeply annoying questions, Reiki admitted, “Got several impulses currently yelling at me to gently comb my fingers through your hair. I’m not going to? One scorched hand is honestly enough. But…would if I could—at least, if it wouldn’t bother you.”
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2023 7:06 pm
Faustite chuckled at the caricature with a few coughs interspersed. "Sounds like some of our Basics and Lieutenants." He didn't elaborate; he wasn't certain he could do so without another fit, though that wasn't the only reason. The rank and file in the Negaverse seemed like the rank and file everywhere else — lazy, nervous, unmotivated, uneducated about the war they just recently joined. Most of them didn't know why they were draining energy, with the smarter ones assuming it was how they paid for their abilities. No energy, no power.
Mirrorspace might have been similar. Or it might not have been anything like that — maybe the Dark Mirror Court had to throw energy into that chasm of a nether-realm to keep Mirrorspace complacent and docile. Perhaps it even interfered with their powers; who was he to say? But to hear that their Basics were useless was a familiar situation to which he could relate.
While his eyes had certifiably glazed over at the names of dead French philosophers whose writing he had never read, Murikabushi's description of them was snappy enough to stay interested. Murikabushi had perfected the sass-on-display style of explanation and hadn't shied away from using it, even when he was around someone who nearly went nuclear on him in a previous encounter. Faustite couldn't tell a Foucault from a Baudrillard, let alone pronounce them properly, but he understood metaphysical arguments and existential crises.
But he did understand the good time implied by a cute twink, some poppers, and a bottle of liquor. The unfortunate ramification to that was that he now craved a night with a cute twink, some poppers, and a bottle of liquor. Which was likely a bad idea, given how his body was falling apart on him.
"Might be what I try next," he decided. Nothing they tried thus far had worked to clear up whatever was wrong with him. Might as well go the unconventional route, now.
The boy's next question had him furrowing his brow, mainly because no one else had asked about it. He wasn't sure what to say, initially. Didn't have anything prepared, so he just shrugged. After that came a slightly delayed "Don't know." But that was seldom an explanation that was satisfactory for anyone asking questions, so he followed up with what little he did know. "Downside to being part youma is no one understands your physiology anymore. No one's figured it out yet.
"Thought if I waited a while, it'd go away. Got worse instead." Exhaustingly worse. Worse enough that he didn't pace anymore. Worse enough that he detested standing and preferred wearing his cincher to sit, even if it caused him to cough twice as often.
The affection bit was even stranger to him. Maybe it wasn't affection — maybe it was something else that he couldn't read because he had a feral fifteen-year-old's understanding of interpersonal nuance and subtext. He needed Albite for a translator in most instances. Without him, at present, Faustite had only his very literal interpretation of what Murikabushi was saying for formulating his response. Yet, he wasn't sure if he heard the boy right. Did Murikabushi actually ask to comb his fingers through Faustite's heat-straightened hair? Or had the coughing deoxygenated his brain sufficiently enough that he couldn't hear right anymore? Faustite couldn't say.
He knew he would be lying to himself if he thought that being sick and miserable alone was more preferable than being sick and miserable with a cute boy consoling him. He knew that, if he was dying, he should take full advantage of that fact to spend as much time with boys as possible. Didn't matter what they thought of him or the Negaverse.How to manage the logistics of it was the nightmare for being part-fire. He had the cincher, but would it be enough?
Well — best to try regardless. Faustite pulled what looked like a corset from nowhere, though it did not serve a corset's purpose. After he wrapped it about his grate and fitted together the clasps, Faustite loosed another couple wan coughs. "You can try," he answered, parched. "Might still be too hot."
Wordlessly, he gestured to the barren space next to him. Then he was reclining on his side, for he understood that only being horizontal could help him now.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2023 8:58 pm
Once it settled in, the idea of the Negaverse youmafying its officers without fully understanding what it did to them and their bodies……could only surprise Reiki so much. In light of everything from how many Negaverse senshi (Toráin until very recently, Xenia, Valjean, Heliodor kind of) seemed to think that the lack of consent (or at least seriously compromised consent) involved in their recruitment into the Negaverse just didn’t matter to Arsenolite acting perfectly chatty and pleasant (relative to the fact that he was Arsenolite) after murdering someone? Yeah, Reiki had to admit: the Negaverse not really understanding what youmafication meant for its officers tracked perfectly.
Even so, was hardly in any kind of position to judge, having joined a Court that seemed largely comprised of do-nothings who didn’t understand what they were meddling in with Mirrorspace, as someone who’d thought at the time that going with Levi to the Black Mirror was only a matter of trusting the boy he fancied and joining the team with the best fashion sense. Obviously, there existed a major difference in scale between Reiki’s personal-level bad choices and the Negaverse hanging who-even-knew how many half-youma agents out to dry in the case of a medical emergency (or, in what seemed to be Faustite’s case, something chronic and terribly debilitating)……but still. The principle of “I have no place judging them when I make questionable decisions without understanding or caring about the long-term consequences all the time, as easily as breathing” felt sound to Reiki.
Chalk the corset Faustite produced up to the latest thing about this whole encounter that Reiki didn’t entirely understand. Rather, once Faustite indicated what it was for, Reiki didn’t understand why Faustite was hauling it out for Reiki.… But given how bad his track record for interpreting Faustite’s behaviors was, Reiki filed the idea of questioning any of this away to be dealt with later……maybe……if Reiki felt like it, whenever the issue next crossed his mind. For now, it was enough to give them a moment—Faustite, so he could get himself as comfortable as possible, given the setting and the circumstances; Reiki, so he could come sit down, heed the warning about Faustite’s relative body heat, and hopefully be less likely to end up with two scorched hands—then to come closer and gently card the backs of his fingers down from Faustite’s temple.
“Mn, more like a fever, this way,” Reiki said softly, quietly, turning his hand over so he could use more of his hand. So he could brush his fingers and palm down Faustite’s cheek and neck, taking care with his fingertips to mind his nails (not that it needed much special care—Reiki kept his natural nails fairly short—but still, he didn’t fancy the idea of being careless). Feverish Faustite, Reiki could deal with. Significantly better than Faustite’s body being so hot that it literally burned. Meant Reiki could put more thought into expressing himself without resorting to the words “I’m sorry,” since something phrased like an apology could’ve made things get messy and negatively charged again.
“Waiting for something to sort itself out has never really worked out for me either,” he offered, slipping into an easy rhythm with stroking Faustite’s hair and face. “More often, it’s been the number one way I’ve invited distinct unpleasantness into my life.… Usually of a less tangible sort, but still.” Reiki huffed softly, aiming a sympathetic look down at Faustite. “At least I have things to fall back on that I know will work if I suck it up and make an effort. But you, staring at a giant pile of question marks and no real way to know what might or might not be important?
“That’s ******** miserable.” Reiki shook his head and continued leaving the I’m sorry unspoken. “Guessing it seemed negligible when it started, right up until it wasn’t anymore?”
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:58 am
At first, Faustite could only answer with a few hacking coughs. The smoke was thicker now, choking and opaque as it wended across the rooftop. He assumed it had to do with the cincher. Terrible, but exhausting all the same.
As he felt fingers sort from his temple through his hair, parting it into heat-straightened wefts, Faustite sighed softly. Smoke twined together as it left his nose. He wasn't sure what to expect when he took Murikabushi up on his offer — it could've easily resulted in the boy recoiling in disgust and insisting he didn't mean it, it could've been a trap, it could've been a means to milk information out of him — but this was nicely straightforward. He felt like he could just… stop moving.
Back when he was in the Rift, he remembered, he'd seen youma just stop. Like they'd run out of battery power, they would slow down to a sluggish pace and eventually stop. They hadn't faded, nor did they look like they were sleeping — the ones with eyelids didn't close them. They just sat inert, even in a place as abundant in ambient energy as the Rift. Faustite thought it peculiar at the time, but attributed it to normal youma behavior. Especially when those very same creatures suddenly roused again, started moving, started flickering out of the Rift in their own personal portals to a Captain or General's beckon, or their native impulse to trawl Destiny City for more energy and starseeds.
He thought, then, that he understood that behavior a margin better. Ceasing to move accompanied a hypnotic state. A certainty that he could lay there, on the parapet, with Murikabushi stroking his hair for a solid month and never need to eat or drink anything. He could subsist off of goodwill alone.
But with that came a dovetailed thought that Axinite was onto something when he suggested Faustite might have to incorporate energy and starseeds into his diet. If he was truly becoming more youma, then that was a logical conclusion on part of the head of Information.
Faustite didn't know how he felt about that. If he felt anything at all.
Well — he felt warmth for Boy, but he expected that wouldn't change even if he burst into flames next to Murikabushi right that second. For now, there was a light, crisp lilt in his chest for the boy's small affections and for the lack of thorny conversation. When Murikabushi wasn't sassing him or trying to apologize for past transgressions that Faustite was disinclined to think about, he could be terribly sweet. Which was its own brand of dangerous to the fiery addict next to him.
"Negaverse has a lot of resources," he volunteered, aware that his optimism sounded flimsy at best. "Might come up with a way to treat it before too long." Not that supporting youmafied officers' health was a cheap endeavor, or a fiscally smart one — what one officer required to stay healthy couldn't be extrapolated to the next one. What saved Faustite might kill Celadonite. There was no way to know but to treat each of them as completely new cases.
"Started as nothing. Some bullshit cough that I didn't think about. Kept getting worse until it got to this." He swallowed, then coughed again. "Turns out medicine doesn't work on me. Not well. No one knows what to do and I haven't got any ideas."
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