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 Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 11:03 pm
For once, Mirrorspace spat Reiki out more or less in the vicinity of where he wanted to be: one of the mirrors that Prince Remarque kept stashed around town (or somebody, but based on what Reiki knew, most likely him), and this one happened to come out only a couple blocks off from Scandals. Perched atop the roof of a building that could’ve been put to use for plenty of things if it hadn’t spent the past several years caught up in some ridiculous liminal state about who legally owned the property and what they had the right to do with it. Considering how often Reiki used this mirror to fast-travel from home to a gig and back again, he had no excuse for not knowing it well.
Maybe letting him have more control over where he exited Mirrorspace was some kind of reward for behaving himself. Maybe all these daily visits were accomplishing literally anything. Maybe it did make any measurable difference that, every day since his and Junsei’s birthday, Reiki had come to Mirrorspace with a song ready on his tongue, an open mind about finding out what his special purple crystals did (apparently, they grew black roses), and tried to keep his Attitude Problem to a minimum.
Today, Reiki had borrowed some gardening shears from Uncle Mitch before going into Mirrorspace. He didn’t think the roses he’d cut off his little thicket and painstakingly de-thorned would last very long outside of Mirrorspace—but he could also admit that he didn’t know for sure, and they were really pretty. Outside of sticking white flowers in a vase with dye, Reiki had never seen pure black blossoms like these before. Some of the roses he’d brought with him, he planned to press in a book and keep those petals for as long as he could. Others, though, he wanted to share with somebody.
Levi was the first person who came to mind, and yet, Reiki hesitated to just pull out his compact and call on him.
Faustite was the second, but Reiki didn’t know how he’d take the gift, especially when: A., Faustite was so dreadfully ill, and B., giving him something pretty but ultimately useless might have wasted his time when the nature of his current illness made every moment he spent alive that much more important.
Kerberos came to Reiki’s mind third, and luckily, he was exceedingly reliable in his habits. Once he had his roses safely stored in his subspace—excluding one that he slipped behind his ear like stashing a pencil there so you wouldn’t lose it, stem curled up to keep it more or less in place—Reiki set off toward North End Park. Hopping across the roofs, he hummed the same tune he’d treated Mirrorspace to tonight: Now, here you go again, you say you want your freedom. Well, who am I to keep you down?… Listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness. Like a heartbeat drives you mad, in the stillness of remembering what you had, and what you lost.…
Honestly, Reiki knew that no cuts off of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours could truly be considered underappreciated—but it was and always would be a crime that We Live In A Society considered Lindsay Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way” to be that album’s definitive track when Stevie Nicks’s “Dreams” and the whole-group-penned “The Chain” were literally right there.… Oh, well. At least Reiki could keep alternately humming and softly singing this song he knew so well from having listened to it with his Dad while growing up: “Thunder only happens when it’s raining. Players only love you when they’re playing. Women, they will come and they will go. When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.…”
A couple blocks off from North-End Park, though, Reiki perked up and trailed off.… The roof he’d landed on—he felt an Order senshi aura nearby. Somebody on his own super senshi level, or it felt that way.… Maybe Izanami, from the reservoir last summer? Maybe My Little Lysithea? Maybe someone new entirely.
Diverting from his planned course, Reiki tried to follow his aura-sense toward whoever was there. He kept his hands folded out in the open, so they could (hopefully) see he wasn’t going to get up to any Bullshit.… Please, somebody, Reiki silently wishes out into the universe, let it be an Order senshi who isn’t a tiny, angry woman who wants to hurt me for <******** existing?
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 12:23 am
Monoceros was doing well, all things considered. He had a new home, and had left everyone he'd known behind (again), but... He felt happy. Melancholy, but... That was to be expected, probably. He missed his boyfriend terribly, and the couple of friends he'd managed to make. But... he couldn't deny that he felt safer like this. Purged of Chaos. Weaker again, but he could still handle himself pretty well. Then he felt a familiar Chaos aura and immediately made his way in their direction as fast as he could. He leapt across one roof, two, and then— "Murikabushi!" he shouted joyfully, nearly tripping over himself as he sped over, arms up for a big bear hug. Porcupine hug? "C'me here!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 3:40 pm
Of all the faces Reiki had expected to see when following this White Moon aura to its source, the one he found ranked somewhere nearish the bottom, among the ranks of “Cosmos herself,” “Kerberos’s friend Hvergelmir” (a Cosmos Knight who’d been instrumental in getting him out of the Negaverse, and who sounded amazing from everything he’d said about her; Reiki really wished that he could have met her), and “essentially Rhaegar Targaryen, but like, as a White Moon Knight or senshi, who only wanted to make Reiki his Lyanna Stark, sweep him off his feet, and take him away from all this.”
Realistically, this was silly—something Reiki only truly realized……right now. This very second. As he nearly collided with the one who bore the aura and saw a sea of white where the fuku had once been black……the tail in the back, laden down with spikes, which Reiki once mistaken for part of a fursuit (an exquisitely made fursuit)……the soft red hair tied up in a bun and the face that was, as always, so impossibly kind……
“……Monoceros? You…?” Reiki blinked at the open arms for a moment before his mind caught up and decided to understand what ‘Ceros was offering him. Folding forward, he scooped ‘Ceros into a tight hug (and hoisted him up to make it easier on Reiki’s back with their height difference). “……I thought you wouldn’t remember me.…… Kerberos and Lysithea made it seem like they didn’t remember hardly anything after getting out?”
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Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2023 7:50 pm
Oof, that was a tight hug. He laughed, hugging Murikabushi back just as tightly. He didn't' realize how much he missed this until just now. He pushed down a sob—even if it started happy tears, he knew it would quickly become a real sad crying jag, and he just wanted to enjoy this moment as it was. "Yeah, well, I got lucky," he said, burying his face in Murikabushi's shoulder. "Real lucky. I remember most of the stuff from the moment I woke up as the hot new me. Y'know, the forced corruption. I don't remember.... any of us hanging out as... Who we were on our off time? But, that's normal to forget. I'm..." Oh, okay, yeah, he was crying now, ******** class="quote"> amorremanet
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:59 am
In the interest of holding onto the hug longer, Reiki shifted his arms around Monoceros, getting them into a position that was overall more supportive of him, more conducive to holding ‘Ceros up and enabling them to hug for as long as they needed. Which might have been a long time, judging from the way that Monoceros buried his face in Reiki’s shoulders. If ‘Ceros curled his legs around Reiki’s waist as well—something to make it so both of them were working to make this hug keep going—then that would’ve been ideal.
Not least because the sound and feeling of Monoceros starting to cry made all the pent-up emotions start boiling over in Reiki’s chest. All the s**t he’d bottled up because……he’d felt like he had to. Because he’d been telling himself that he had no right to get upset. Because getting out of the Negaverse had been for Monoceros’s sake, so he could be well and be happy, and Reiki had wanted it to happen—had wanted to just support his friend without question or hesitation—so Reiki had effectively surrendered any right to feel hurt by any hypothetical damage to their relationship.
“It’s okay,” he told Monoceros, voice teetering more than slightly as Reiki tried to hold off from breaking down himself. Taking a deep breath, he gently rubbed Monoceros’s back. “Not remembering our civ time…… It’s sad? But—it makes sense?” If Monoceros remembered him as Reiki, rather than as Murikabushi, then it could’ve put him at risk. Monoceros could have been picked out as a target to pressure for intel on Reiki. “And at least you still remember me.… I’ll take only remembering me powered up over nothing. Anyway, I can always power down where you can’t see and pick up take-out from the diner we went to, if you ever want.”
He’d done similar things for Fang, first when his magic had hit Fang and subsequently when it seemed like Fang had needed food. Ditto for Amsvartnir, albeit without the part where Reiki had ever hit him with his magic. Reiki regularly picked up drinks or snacks while powered down, then powered up and took them to Kerberos’s bench. Doing that for Monoceros would just……make him that much more like all of Reiki’s other Order-aligned friends. Help reaffirm that he was out of the Negaverse’s clutches.
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 1:34 pm
Monoceros felt Murikabushi adjusting them as he started to cry in earnest and clung more to him like a koala bear, wrapping his legs around the other senshi when it became apparent that that was the best option. He shook as he cried, sometimes just... squeezing Muri tighter. "Mhm... That sounds good," he said thickly, breathing shuddery, as he tried to calm down. "I missed you, the second I did it. Well, missed you the minute I got your voicemail instead of you, when I was on my way to get it done."
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 2:57 pm
…Oh. Oh, Monoceros. Even if Reiki had had an actual proper handle on his emotions—which, honestly, he didn’t feel like he did, and the fact that he wasn’t crying his own eyes out didn’t change this—he wouldn’t have been able to maintain it very well in the face of how upset Monoceros was about everything. Reiki’s attempts at bottling up his own tears were proving pretty useless, what with ‘Ceros’s sadness kicking him square in the empathy and the desire to be here for his friend.
“Part of me wishes I could’ve talked to you,” Reiki said, still rubbing Monoceros’s back and looking around the roof for somewhere they could maybe sit.… Okay, last time they’d sat on a roof, it hadn’t worked out so well, summoning those jerk-a** Midnight Mass-looking gargoyles and all? But maybe it’d be more comfortable for ‘Ceros to cry what he needed to cry if they were sitting. “Quick aside, just FYI? There’s a bench over by……” Reiki squinted. “Well, it looks like a rooftop garden? Anyway, we’re going to the bench.”
Not that he made any moves to disentangle them from each other once he sat down. Reiki would let Monoceros go, if he wanted, but for now, the clingy koala position didn’t bother Reiki unless ‘Ceros didn’t like it so much, now that it had put him in Reiki’s lap.
“But as I was saying?” Reiki sighed. “Part of me wishes I’d caught you in time? But another part of me has been glad to have the voicemail.” He gave Monoceros a firm but gentle squeeze. “…I knew you promised to give me a head’s up? But it still meant a lot to me that you did.”
With how many people from Reiki’s graduating class at Meadowview had just disappeared into gods-knew-where? Having Monoceros do the same thing, even knowing that he planned to purify, would’ve gutted Reiki far too much.
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:43 pm
Monoceros didn't move, allowing Murikabushi to take them down off the roofs and to a bench without complaint. Though once they were seated, he unraveled himself slightly, to sit more on Muri's lap without squashing his legs against the back of the bench. "I'm glad you got it," he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. "I just... It was a lot. It was so much, and I wished you could've, I dunno, been there, or something. It's so hard, trusting people you barely know, just because you used to know them."
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:18 pm
“It’s okay,” Reiki said without even needing to think about it. “You probably had to work fast, considering the Negaverse of it all, and I mean? I’ve only met one of the people who was involved in helping you out of there?”
Granted, My Little Lysithea had been a total sweetheart and Reiki overall liked her, but it still bore consideration that she didn’t really know him. She didn’t have any way of reliably contacting him. And even if she knew that he supported Monoceros getting out of the Negaverse, she didn’t have anyway of knowing that he wouldn’t abscond with Ceros back to Mirrorspace or something like that. (Reiki wouldn’t have done that, not ever, even putting aside how he couldn’t get into the throne room on his own……but Lysithea didn’t know him except as Ceros’s friend and one decent conversation, so he couldn’t theoretically blame her for not taking any chances. Getting Ceros out of the Negaverse had been too important.)
Gently rubbing Ceros’s back, Reiki sighed softly. “How have you been since it happened, though? They didn’t do something crazy like get you out of there, wipe some of your memories, and then tell you to find your own place to live, right? Y’know, as if your new civilian alter ego has a credit history or references or anything landlords might look for in a background check?”
Idly, Reiki wondered if the Mauvians had anything to do with all of that. Would’ve made sense if they did, given they had both technical expertise and a job to look after their senshi, but……well, what did Reiki know, really?
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 10:10 pm
"Hah, no, the Mauvians helped me get an apartment. It's teeny tiny right now, but..." He sighed. "It's the littlest affordable place without tripping some alarm bells. Mauvian magic with bank accounts can only go so far. I need to get a job still, but—your new fake boy has perfect credit and all." He inhaled slowly. "Mm, Lysithea and Ilse and Mont St Michel and Soleiyu. Though, it was just Lysi and Soleiyu, who were there when the Chaos was purged."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 7:18 pm
Reiki chuckled a bit, listening to Monoceros go over how things had changed with his purification……and he couldn’t help the way his mind wandered onto all kinds of questions. What about someone who wanted to get out of a Chaos faction, but maybe one of their necessary medications was a controlled substance? If some senshi wanted to break off from Chaos and they had ADHD, would the Mauvians be able to screw around to get the prior authorizations for that senshi’s Adderall put through? Would they have to endure the whole humiliating ordeal of getting diagnosed all over again? Even if they’d theoretically—strictly hypothetically, all for curiosity’s sake—been diagnosed since some a*****e teacher at Knightside had tried to get them to stop wearing skirts by getting them hauled in for their ADHD diagnosis?
Or what about senshi wanting to leave Chaos and having people they didn’t want to abandon? People who weren’t powered up or anything, and maybe they would go there or maybe not, Reiki didn’t know, but like……if someone got so lucky to have a QPP who just Got them, and that QPP wasn’t literally magical but he was important? Would they have to completely abandon a guy like Yuki or could they work something out perhaps?
Not that Reiki had practical reasons for wanting to know.
Not that it would’ve made a difference if he had.
Taking in Ceros’s list of names, Reiki shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve only met Lysithea off of that list,” he said softly, “and it was only once, while I was really sleep-deprived? But anyone who’s been helping you before or is still helping you now? They’re alright by me.”
Even without meeting them.
Even knowing perfectly well that some people who fought for the White Moon were feral assholes.
Reiki just didn’t care what they thought of him personally, not even if they hated him for Existing While Chaos. They’d helped Monoceros get free, back to where he wanted to be, so as far as Reiki was concerned, those Order senshi and/or Knights and/or Mauvians could hate him as much as they wanted. The only important thing in that whole debate was how Monoceros had gotten free, and in this specific moment, how Reiki could hug him, knowing that his friend was back in the place (speaking magical girl faction-wise) where he’d be happy.
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 8:44 pm
"I'll tell them about you," Monoceros said softly, resting his head on Murikabushi's shoulder with a soft hum. "I'll make sure they don't hurt you. If they know me, they should know you helped. Without you, I don't know if I'd've made it out of there. Been brave enough, I mean." He inhaled slowly, trying not to sigh as he exhaled. "Thank you."
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