[OPEN] ❁ don't let it get the best of you, you'll make it out alive

[roseblooms]

WHO: Fawkes and YOU!
WHERE: All around Recolle during the nightmares/fog event!
WHEN: Various times in the month of October!
WHAT: Nightmares, fog encounters, and etc.
WARNINGS: Will be attached to the headers of various top-levels within!

Comments

FOG - FORLORN (cw: parental maltreatment, terminal illness, thoughts/themes of suicide)

[roseblooms]

[One minute he's navigating through the fog, heading for home, and the next minute he's standing on a rooftop in what is clearly a city at night; the sky is clear, and the full moon overhead is huge and foreboding.

Strangely enough, there's a hospital bed joining him on the rooftop, still implausibly hooked up to machines with wires and tubes even though the places that those connections lead are nowhere to be found. It's simply there, and so is Fawkes, and he's holding something in his hands, and his shoulders are starting to sag as he listens to the person in the bed as she talks to him, too low to hear without getting closer.

If you do choose to draw nearer, you'll start to see that it's a middle-aged woman there in the bed, with pale, translucent skin and wisps escaping from the low ponytail she's got her hair tied back into. The sheets are pulled up over her knees, and she's got her chin lowered, staring at her hands where they're folded in her lap.

You're the one who did this, she says softly, as the formerly steady rise and fall of Fawkes's chest abruptly stills.

A moment passes, and nothing is said, and that seems to ignite the woman's ire; her head flies up, and her expression is twisted into an awful scowl as her red-rimmed eyes fix directly onto Fawkes.

You did this, you parasite! she shrieks. You mother-killing monster! You did this! You did it to me! I never asked for you!

He's biting his lip now, so hard that the skin is starting to turn white. The woman in the bed gestures violently to the object in his hands.

Use it! she snaps. Use it, you coward! Take responsibility!

He looks down at the shattered mirror face, at the jagged remants of glass raising their sharp edges toward the sky. He closes his eyes, and the moonlight shifts and refracts off the scattered edges, and when he opens his eyes again, the smooth solid face of the mirror is restored.

Do it, his mother hisses, and he nods, lowering himself slowly to one knee and setting the mirror down on the ground in front of him before extending one hand toward its face.

Overhead, the moonlight starts to look altogether too bright, and the reflecting face of the mirror starts to shine.]

[sotenbori]

Fawkes, stop.

[ this fog shit is getting out of hand, honestly. and the more people he can get to the better. he watches the scene horrified for a moment before fawkes starts reaching for the mirror and he doesn't know what the heck that's gonna do other than it's going to be bad. that much he's got. ]

She's tryin' ta hurt ya. Don't.

[roseblooms]

[The sound of a voice makes him stop short, looking up uncertainly with the bewilderment showing openly on his face.]

Majima...?

[I'm dying, his mother snaps, irritable at the delay. Stop wasting time! Use it, before it's too late!]

[sotenbori]

Whoever that old woman is, she ain't your mom.

[ majima walks closer to fawkes, carefully but surely. he's not about to let fawkes hurt himself thats for sure. ]

It's this fog, ya know?

[roseblooms]

No.

[He says it softly, in a voice that comes thin and weak, and turns his eyes back to the surface of the mirror where it's still shimmering with moonlight, waiting for him to make his next move.]

She's not wrong. It's my fault, so I have to...I have to...

[...What? He doesn't know. But this is right, somehow. He knows it's right, somehow, to follow through with this.

But the strange part is, it's right that Majima is here, too, making him stay his hand. That's an important part of this, too, and he doesn't understand why.]

[sotenbori]

Ya have ta what? Give your soul up ta Retrospec because they can't keep a handle on all this unreality shit?

[ he reaches over once he's close and puts his hand on his shoulder. like he's trying to ground him in whats real. ]

[despirit]

[he doesn't know this man, he couldn't say what draws him in other than the desire for things to be better. that he can sense pain the way some people can detect a light, and when he steps in, he knows he's intruding, but his eyes seek nothing but Fawkes.]

You don't have to do this.

[he's close enough to reach out, put a hand on his shoulder.]

[roseblooms]

[It's strange, he thinks, because the feeling of the hand on his shoulder isn't unwelcome in the slightest. It's almost as though someone ought to be doing that, or something similar to it, even if he can't quite put his finger on why. But no — it's right that someone else should be here, himself and his mother and the moon, and someone —

Strange. Why is there supposed to be someone else here? What role do they play, what are they supposed to do?]

She'll die if I don't.

[That much, at least, is true. He knows it's true; whatever else she might be, he knows for certain that the woman in the bed isn't lying about that.]

[despirit]

And you'll die if you do. Everything has a time, you know.

[he speaks with the calmness of someone who's had to say this before, stepping up to be by the man's side.]

It's not easy. But what do you feel right now?

[roseblooms]

I'll...die?

[Strange. It's like the thought had never actually concretely occurred to him until his visitor said it, but once he did — no, he's not wrong. He's not wrong in the slightest.

If he goes through with this, his mother will live, and he won't.

Still, the words are thick in his throat, and it takes him a bit before he's able to answer, keeping his eyes fixed on the mirror until he can find the presence of mind to tear them away and look up at his guest.]

...I feel like this is something I have to do. That it's...right...

[despirit]

Is it really?

[he's not smiling, a rarity, but he keeps his eye trained on Fawkes.]

Do you have to destroy yourself for someone else's sake? I may not know about you and her, but that doesn't sound like something a mother would say. At least, one worth all that.

[evidentiary]

It's trying to trick you.

[ kyouko's voice is calm and steady despite the dream (the memory?), and as bluntly honest as she ever is. there's no judgement in that tone, and she says it because this is the nightmare itself, she thinks. if he looks over, her violet eyes are focused on him, and the mirror. ]

...You don't have to let it.

[roseblooms]

[He can't help but frown slightly at the sight of the girl joining him on the rooftop, mildly perplexed by this new development. It's right but it's wrong; yes, there ought to be someone up here with him, but it's not supposed to be a girl...maybe, and it puts this encounter just enough into the uncanny valley that he can't help but hesitate and try to make sense of it.]

It's not a trick. It's a trade.

[That's...right, isn't it? A trade. Yes, that's right, the mirror will let him fix this, take responsibility...

There's a trade to be made, somehow, and the responsibility is his to make it.]

But if I don't do it soon, it'll be too late.

[evidentiary]

An actual "trade" wouldn't be trying to hard to get you to make it, would it?

[ she doesn't know what using the mirror will do, or what it is meant to do. it is, she thinks, probably a piece of another lifetime - and one that makes no sense to her at all.

still. standing there quiet and unrelenting is impossible, because where else is she to go? so she keeps speaking. ]

What is the trade meant to do, then?

[roseblooms]

[He frowns, brow furrowing. There's something about this conversation that nags at him, something that he can't quite seem to reach unless he focuses very deliberately on it. It's something about hospitals — no, doctors, a conversation about doctors — something about the kind of person you would want to find in a hospital.

That's where he is, the rooftop of a hospital. And his mother is dying, but he can save her.

At least, he hopes he can save her.

That's the moment, the one when his dreaming mind finds and latches onto the word hope, that something jars free, and it occurs to him that of the various voices filling this dream, one of them is the voice of reason, and it isn't him.]

I don't remember.

[Naive, to follow through with something and not know the consequences, isn't it? Is there reason to be found in that?]

But if I use it, she can live. If the...moonlight...

[Does what? If the moonlight does what? It's all so hazy, he can't quite recall.]

[evidentiary]

...Would she want you to? Not the person trying to get you to make a trade now.

[ the moonlight, the mirror, and something to let someone else live.

kirigiri steps closer to the edge of the roof and peers off of it, frowning, before she turns back to eye the mirror. ]

But the person you truly want to save. Would she want you to?

[doublesmall]

[hearing words like that makes something burn in chuuya's chest, makes him want to bite back even though it isn't his place because he knows well enough that sometimes, biological ties don't mean shit--

it's very much not his place, so he stops himself for now, but it's a damn near thing. he focuses instead on fawkes, on the mirror.]

Do what? Don't tell me you're thinking about doing something stupid, now.

[casual as he makes the words sound, he's still on edge and tense, positioned where he can see both of them.]

[roseblooms]

It's not stupid.

[Vaguely, he sort of realizes that he ought to say something clever and funny there, something like I've thought this out far too carefully for it to be stupid, but somehow there's a barrier between knowing what he ought to say and being able to actually reach it, and he ends up just feebly registering his halfhearted protest, instead, without any of the follow-up he wishes he could make.

His mother is watching the two of them now, though, cold and scrutinizing. It seems as though there's supposed to be someone else here in this dream, but it's malleable for who and how.]

It's to save her life.

[To take responsibility, something seems to echo, even though no one utters that sentence at all.]

[doublesmall]

Yeah? And what's it gonna do to you, huh?

[if there weren't some kind of risk, surely he'd already have done whatever it is he's thinking of doing, and saving people tends to be a pretty big kind of risk.

it's why he doesn't really consider himself the type to do it, honestly.]

And what makes it your job to save her in the first place, anyway?

[roseblooms]

She's my mother.

[She's not, and he knows it, but the dream says that she is and so clearly she must be.]

There's no other way to do it. Nothing else will work — nothing else has worked. The doctors couldn't save her. The specialists. I'm the only one...

[He glances down, staring at his own face reflected back in the mirror's glass.]

And even I can't, except like this.

[doublesmall]

Like what?

[he gives the mirror a suspicious look, because he hasn't missed the lack of an answer for what, exactly, this thing is going to do. chuuya already doesn't like this one bit.]

If nothing else worked, what makes you so sure a hunk of glass is going to do anything for her, huh?

[sakeplz]

[This is strange. He watches all of this happen and he recognizes the red head. The one from Team Brandywine. Jirou isn't sure what is happening but somehow this looks bad.

And that woman looks so ill...

Jirou moves closer and rests a hand on his shoulder.]

What does this do? This mirror? Do you know?

[Because this looks like another one of those fog traps.]

[roseblooms]

[He nods, slightly, the corner of his lip catching behind his teeth as he struggles to pull his focus away from the mirror and look up at Jirou instead. The muscles beneath Jirou's hand are tense, drawn taut; seems like Fawkes has been subconsciously steeling himself for an unpleasant inevitability and locking up his muscles because of it.]

I know. It's to save her life.

[sakeplz]

[He's a drunk but he's not stupid. There's tension in his friend. Like he's getting ready to give up something important here. Frowning now, he goes to kneel next to him.]

How does it work?

[Because this looks...bad.]

[roseblooms]

It grants your heart's desire.

[Well, that seems simple enough. Unfortunately, he's not done; the explanation doesn't end there, and he hangs his head slightly as he continues.]

All you have to do is trade your life for it.