ximilia | [ text ] un: aragaki; like 4 am

[ the vibranium ring catches the light. after a moment, erik shakes his head. ]

Nah. Some things, maybe. Not all of it. I'd say you remind me of my uncle, but I never met the guy.

All I ever knew was he killed my dad and left me there. Collateral damage.

[It's funny how memory can be; some of the moments from that night are burned into his mind permanently -- the woman's corpse in the sickly-green light of the Dark Hour, her blood leaking out into the street. The sounds of his own screams as Castor wreaked havoc. But he doesn't remember much else of what happened afterward. He isn't sure if he ran, or if Aki and Mitsuru took him away from there, or if the Kirijou Group showed up to cover up the evidence. Everything besides those moments are a blur.

He couldn't say if he left Ken there on purpose or not. He never thought he'd see the kid again after that night, certainly. It's the only reason he came back to SEES, in the end. If that boy was there, it was his responsibility to watch out for him, to keep him from getting hurt.

Shinjiro is tempted to ask why Erik's uncle killed his father--all this time he'd assumed somebody else killed his dad. An outsider like himself. But it's best not to derail this with personal questions like that, especially if he's trying to let the man cut him loose already.]

So why do you still talk to me, anyway? I know it ain't for the company.

[He knows what he's like. A gloomy kid at best, with baggage that's weighed down perhaps every conversation they've ever had.]

[ he frowns, his fingers dropping from his ring. he's not sure if he wants to examine it. things like kindness, empathy, they're feelings to be used, not to be used by. and he knows what he is. a frankenstein monster, made up of parts, destined to raise a hand against his makers.

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. ”

he shrugs. ]

What're you askin', really? Are you trying to find a reason to get me to stop?

I dunno. Maybe.

[He doesn't want Erik to go. He thinks Erik probably should. Shinjiro may not admit to it, but he's been struggling a long time--it's that impulse to make yourself hurt when nothing else makes sense. Erik, the only one he's ever told his story that hasn't told him, it's not your fault, can make him hurt.]

Or maybe just an answer.

[Maybe just a reason to keep going, as guilt threatens to tear him in different directions.]

[ erik lets out an irritated breath, though it's hard to tell if it's directed at shinji or this whole situation. there's a certain amount of self-reflection he'd like to avoid. ]

I'm not invested in being somethin' that you can use to hurt yourself. I have enough of that shit in the past. People felt guilty but they didn't do anything. They just felt bad and left me to — [ he cuts himself off. he had been thinking of uncle james. pleading his case to erik to save t'challa's life. I am the cause of your father's death. as if it fixed everything. killing him hadn't been satisfying because the old man practically begged for it.

and he hates it. he hates it because they all want to die, they all want to use death as a way to get out of it. ] — I have my own reasons for what I do and they're mine.

But you're fine havin' someone around that hurts you.

[He pushes off from where he's leaning against the bridge, finally turns to look toward Erik. Somehow, Shinjiro manages to look both awfully young and far too old at the same time.]

Y'know...I think you hate yourself just as bad as I do. S'like you said, right? Who'd you even be if y'ain't hurtin'?

[He's skirting dangerously close to some kind of line, he feels. But Erik won't give him an answer, and he's tired. Maybe it's better if he keeps his his distance until the missions are seen through and he can be done already.]

So you let some punk trash asshole hang around and ask shit that pisses you off and then act like it's on you not to hurt me.

Don't you understand I ain't got shit to offer? Why're you still wastin' your time?

[ erik takes in a sharp sudden breath, the truth hitting him square in the chest. had he been punishing himself and simply using shinji as a vehicle for that? the thought makes his blood run cold. he knew he was full of hatred and rage, he has never denied it, but perhaps he denied in the place where it mattered. perhaps his actions were still seeped in it, so far from home.

"You will destroy the world, Wakanda included!" t'challa had yelled out at him but erik —

still, he knows what shinji is trying to do, so his jaw clenches tightly. ]

Is that what you want, then? You want me to fuckin' hurt you? You think I'm that much of a monster that I would?

[ — it was too late for him. he was already the monster. ]

[That much of a monster. Shinjiro has never thought of Erik as a monster -- even now that he knows about the marks, he doesn't feel any particular fear or revulsion toward him. He doesn't understand him, either, because having dreams and goals never really landed anywhere on Shinjiro's radar even before Castor crushed that home and his spirit along with it -- but he admires him, in a way. Erik dreams of a world where nobody gets stabbed in prison or left behind in a fire or stranded as a child with a parent's corpse and a shattered life. He believes a better world is possible.

Shinjiro never did. And maybe at another time, this would have quieted him. Maybe if the hour were less late and Shinjiro were less raw or the moment less fraught he might have been able to at least disengage. Might have been able to realize all they had for each other were their sharp broken glass edges.

Instead, what slips out is something he never meant to say out loud.]

I want to know why you don't hate me!

[Hot tears finally overflow and leak out. He's always been careful to hide it from Erik if their conversations got too painful, but that's impossible here. He doesn't even try to stop them. Once the outburst has passed, his anger slowly crumbles into something more like despair.]

You're...I thought you'd...understand --

[Erik never told him it wasn't his fault. And Shinjiro has longed for someone to punish him for so, so long. His voice cracks in his throat, and this time the look in his eyes is far too young, like a child desperate for reassurance]

Edited 2021-10-29 11:54 (UTC)

[ tears. it's the sight of them that jolt erik because he so rarely remembers what tears are for. for the first time, he doesn't see t'chaka in the shadow of shinji's pain but another person . . .

"No tears for me?"

the urge to reach out to his necklace is overwhelming. to feel the cut of metal against his fingers, to dig into his skin. to make him bleed. they're both abandoned here and erik — erik was regurgitating the cycle of fatalism. what would his father want him to say here? what should he do?

he breathes it out. by any means necessary malcolm x had once said. but he can't live that way anymore.

he's not even alive. ]

I just don't want to. Yeah, it's hard to separate the bad shit. It's ingrained in me. I'm never gonna get it out.

Hating things just blackens the heart. It eats you inside out. Even if you're hatin' yourself.

Like you do.

[I just don't want to. Shinjiro just stands there still and stunned for a minute, tears still flowing.

He doesn't understand. Akihiko, he'd grown up with. Mitsuru had been a friend, and a Kirijou besides. They made sense. Erik, though. Erik has suffered the way Amada had suffered. Erik has been the one left behind with a dead parent and nobody to believe his story. Shinjiro should be a symbol of all that misery.

He should be someone Erik resents for just breathing anywhere near him. What he says sounds nice enough, but Shinjiro's not sure he can believe it. Or accept it. Why shouldn't Erik want to hate him? What can he possibly see of worth in him? Shinjiro bows his head, fingernails digging into his hands. Sometimes he feels exactly like a rotted out person, honestly. An empty husk where a person once used to live and now where his corpse needs to be dragged along until it can finally be in the ground, ashes and dust.

The tears haven't stopped, because maybe if he doesn't reach out to wipe them away he doesn't have to acknowledge they're there, that they're his when he has no right to this pain. After all, it's like the other man says -- there's no worth to his guilt if he can't do anything with it. And that's an answer, isn't it? If he wants to make his guilt meaningful, he ought to stop whining about things like the goals and the killing because he's already crossed that line and he doesn't get to pretend like he's still a good person. He doesn't know why he can't get over himself. It's pathetic. He's a coward.

(He can't stop crying.)

Shinjiro makes a ragged noise from the back of his throat, trying to find his voice. All he can manage is--]

If nobody else is gonna do it, I might as well, right?

[Maybe if his heart is blackened enough someday, it'll finally stop.]

[ erik's expression tightens briefly. he doesn't reach out, doesn't touch. it is a house of cards and erik's never held anyone without breaking them. and he doesn't want to be the blow that breaks shinji. he just doesn't. it's true that his feelings here aren't straightforward, that sometimes the things shinji brings up are hard for erik to grapple with.

he burns hot. he sets fire to himself to keep warm. he doesn't want to go cold with cruelty. ]

. . . If you're waitin' for someone like that, it's never gonna happen. No one can absolve you and no one can damn you. There ain't no God at the end of the tunnel.

[ he cuts his teeth on his words, a jaguar. ]

And I already said I ain't here to be someone's noose. Not yours, not T'challa, . . . not even my uncle's.

You're gonna have choose which pieces of yourself you wanna keep and which ones you're gonna let go of for your goals. You can bleed it all out or you can do somethin' with what you've learned. Because no one else knows it. No one knows what it's like.

A world where there are no more people like me or you.

[Shinjiro listens. He does, even though he doesn't raise his head. It takes him a while to be able to settle his breathing, for his eyes to dry up, even though he doesn't reach up to wipe away the tear tracks.]

That's the world you want, right?

[An echo of an old conversation. Shinjiro doesn't look at the older man as he says it; he thinks putting them in the same category together is a bad joke at best. But for once, the self-loathing doesn't shut down his ability to listen or think, and he doesn't derail the conversation to argue about that.]

...Ain't ever had goals, really. Not like you. Aki was always the one with the hustle. He'd used to try to get me more motivated for shit, but none of it really mattered to me, y'know? School or whatever, ain't like someone like me was gonna be anything. The only real good thing I ever tried to do was fight the Shadows, and that was for Aki too.

[He couldn't let his best friend, the closest thing in the world he'd had to family back then, go out there alone.]

He tried to get me to come back after I left. For two years, he'd keep on chasin' me down, gettin' on my ass about movin' on, about not lettin' my power go to waste.

[The last time Shinjiro told Erik about Aki was under a starry sky like this, too. There's something comforting about it, almost.]

He was all I had, but I couldn't take that risk. Not even for him.

[. . .]

[He has somewhere he's going with this. He knows how he means to get there, but he can't help but hesitate. Erik might not hate him, but is it right to keep doing this to him? He could stop. He could be the one to walk away, like he had in Japan. He's managed on his own before.

Yet there's some part of him that desperately wants the man to understand--the whole ugly, meaningless story. To know who he is, even if he won't give him the censure he craves.]

I found out about these drugs that'd suppress your Persona. This one group of thugs with the same problem as me had 'em. And I knew they were bad news when I got involved with 'em, knew they had a whole business of hirin' themselves out as hitmen and shit, but I looked the other way for the suppressants.

[He'd underestimated just how dangerously insane they were, though. Setting up a Revenge Request business was one thing, but he hadn't counted on their obsession with the Dark Hour. He hadn't thought they'd be willing to kill kids to protect it.]

...Point is, I already carved out all the pieces of me there were, tryin' to take responsibility for what I did. I pushed Aki away, dropped outta school, made deals with murderers to keep people safe from me. And it all got fucked up anyway. The kid almost got killed by those nutjobs.

Now I'm here, and I don't even know who I'm sellin' the last scraps of my soul to this time. If any of this is worth shit or if I'm just gettin' suckered again.

Edited 2021-10-30 12:20 (UTC)

[ yeah. there's a lot of ambiguity in their situation. erik's not really sure if there's any good advice to be found. for him, he wants the power viveca and the others have. he needs it. his very existence hinges on it and he doesn't want anyone else to have control over it, even if it is over.

erik runs a hand over his dreadlocks with a sigh. he's the worst person for this, but he's the only person right now. ]

So make a stand. S'okay if you're not ready to commit to it. Keep your eyes and ears open. Don't do the dirty shit.

There's plenty of us who can carry that 'nyway. Doesn't have to be you. But this is something only you can figure out in the end. Whether you walk away or dig a grave, it's your weight.

...It really matter if it's me or not? Whatever anyone does for those orbs, it's on all of us, ain't it?

[The only one that said they'd definitely stop others if they went too far was Alenko. It should be a relief, but he's torn, there. If he ought to be doing the same, or if the Orb is more important. That's what he was struggling with before he was struck with the unfairness of bothering Erik specifically about the morality of possibly orphaning more children to undo a regret of an orphaned child.

But then, it's not just about him, is it? Everyone's regrets ride on the orbs. It's so much more complicated than he thought things would be, at the beginning.]

Yeah, 'course it matters. It starts with you. How you see it from then on is a series of different choices.

But if you don't start with yourself, you're just gonna get pulled 'round in different directions.

I mean, I already know about me. I don't wanna kill anyone. Doesn't mean you or Andy or anyone else ain't gonna if you think you gotta. Or that I could even stop you. Hell, Andy's some kinda immortal.

[He watched her come back to life from being obviously dead and it was real fucked up!!!]

But I ain't got anywhere to walk away to, either.

[He's dead in Japan, and they're on a spaceship that takes them all back once each orb is secured. The only way to get out of any of this would be to die again, and that feels about as much of a coward choice as anything else.]

[ immortal huh. erik carefully files it away. he had a feeling, but it's nice to have confirmation. ]

Neither do I. Doesn't mean you can't commit. S'not really about whether you'll succeed or not. It's about the doing.

[Neither do I. Shinjiro wonders if that means what he thinks it means. He'll circle back to it, perhaps.]

Is it? End result, someone's still dead.

[He's not sure throwing himself pointlessly at someone who can easily kill him is more than an empty gesture, either.]

[ he shrugs. ]

It's gonna be like that. But at least you'll own your agency and someone else doesn't own you.

[There's a silence. Erik is right. He knows Erik's right, but something still sits in his gut, churning with discomfort.

(It's the guilt.)

He stuffs his hands in his pockets again, his usual defensive gesture, and hunches just a bit further inwards than usual.]

...Doesn't feel like enough.

[ it would be very easy to point out the obvious. there's nothing that'll be enough for shinji. nothing but a perfect ending and those don't just drop out of the sky. even with all the power this place may promise, it certainly offers no guarantees.

consequence is a power beyond all others. ]

You have to start somewhere. If you never start, then it won't simply be enough.

It'll just be nothing.

[Another silence. Yeah, that's fair. As much as he'd like to, he can't argue that.]

...Thanks.

[Another pause, and he squirms a little awkwardly.]

Uh. See you tomorrow, I guess...?

[He almost sounds a little bit shy. Shinjiro had come out here expecting Erik to cut him out of his life, and the man had very specifically not done that. He's not sure what that means for them.]

[ erik huffs, amusement trickling in. ]

Yeah, buddy. Go sleep on it for a bit.

[ text ] un: aragaki; like 4 am

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dw where was this tag jfc

rude dw!!

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doin another cw for somewhat explicit suicidality

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