[Aibouverse, circa ep34 canon: open to AU Go-Busters, particularly seeking Masato and/or 'iromu~]

[silverpleather]

If it had been my decision, I probably wouldn't have told the others about Masato's... not entirely helpful coping mechanism. I've seen it before, of course, his tendency to make a joke out of anything that upsets him.

I've been the subject more than not in the past thirteen years, but this is something different entirely.

I had every intention of going after him on my own and dealing with him and the stupid Puppetroid, but Jueki put paid to that by telling the entire group what was going on before I got a chance.

Hopefully I'll still get a chance to talk to him alone. Even if I have to drag him to the subdimension to do it.

Comments

[loveenetronkurorin]

I haven't seen him this unguarded in... in thirteen years.

Hm.

He's kicking, fidgeting with his hair, and then he strides over to me like he's about to yell.

He doesn't yell, but fuck, the frustration on his face. "Pick one. The biggest one, if you can't pick."

[goldenikemen]

I open my mouth, but there are no words behind that action. I fumble, and falter, and god, I just want to lean against him and... and cry.

Really cry, just let go in ways I've never allowed myself to. I can't even remember the last time I let myself cry like normal people do. Long, long before I was pulled away to the Subdimension.

No good. I couldn't cry in this form even if I allowed myself to.

I shake my head, and half turn away from him, hiding my face in my hair. "Kurorin, there's... there's a reason why my avatar looks like I did thirteen years ago."

I tip my head back, and look up at the sky, now properly night. "And there's a reason why Emi's doesn't."

[loveenetronkurorin]

Sun's gone down. The starlight is a silhouette around his hair, and I just... have to suppress a sudden fierce need to have back those years we lost.

He's so upset.

I jolt forward, a hand outstretched, composure shattered. If he means... "So one of them is a false image? Or both?"

[goldenikemen]

"No." I shake my head, and look back at him. "Neither of us are false."

I will not undermine Emi's expression of self by calling it a false image. I just won't. He is too important to me. He deserves this borrowed time as the age he should be.

My palm practically itches to take Kurorin's hand, but I hold back, keeping myself as composed as I can manage, while my voice remains pained, but firm.

"I helped Emi age his avatar as his mind aged. I helped him grow up in the only way he could."

[loveenetronkurorin]

...I'm not going to fall apart over this.

"I see," I rumble after too long a pause. My mind flicks through all the implications, the horror, the poignance of someone who's still physically eleven years old being trapped like that.

He's twenty-four. That hasn't changed. False means the representation of the physical self, only. His avatar genuinely represents his identity, though.

He's eleven, physically, there.

I shake my head, not because I don't believe it, but because I don't want to believe it, then I meet Jin's eyes with as much empathy as I can manage on top of how much this troubles me. "This is a hell of a mess, Jin."

[goldenikemen]

I meet his eyes for as long as I can, then waver, not turning away, simply dropping my gaze and letting my hair fall over my face. My favorite way of hiding. Or disengaging.

"That is a lovely understatement, Kurorin." I sigh, and cross my arms tightly over my chest. My tone is gentle, despite my posture, and I am not trying to snipe at him with my words.

He's easing into this idea. I've had years.

"You can't tell anyone you know. Especially not Emi." I shake my head, and look back at him, my eyes imploring. "Please. He deserves this delusion."

[loveenetronkurorin]

Still so much of a gulf between us. I can't tell if it's helped him at all to share this.

I smile, just a little. "After everything you've both been through, I think I can live with that, somehow," I say with just a touch of affection. "You're right, anyway. It's not false. He is twenty-four."

Still a child. In more ways than the others, and it makes my stomach constrict. But there's nothing I can do.

"It's his decision whether he tells anyone before we rescue your bodies."

[goldenikemen]

My posture softens, my shoulders easing, if only just slightly, when he agrees not to tell anyone. I can tell Kurorin, I can share my worry and pain with him, but if the others knew...

Emi would never forgive me. And I would never be able to forgive myself.

"Thank you, really."

I uncross my arms, and almost reach toward him, but my arm falters halfway, and my hand drops.

"With everything that's happened recently, and the fact that we still don't have our bodies back, added to the complications that implies... I..."

I sigh, and for a brief moment my avatar wavers. It rights itself soon enough, and maybe he didn't notice.

"I'm so tired, Kurorin."

[loveenetronkurorin]

At least he knows he can trust me with this. That's something, I suppose.

...his avatar actually wavers.

I take a step towards him automatically, because it's too close to the little tells he used to give when he'd overworked and was sick or something, and was about to pass out, and I'd need to grab him... not that it happened too often, but there are some things the body doesn't forget.

One day maybe fourteen years ago... he'd only communicated with me by email, and I knew he was in the middle of a huge project, had worked maybe thirty-six, maybe forty hours. He'd finished, so I came to see if he wanted lunch.

Dark circles surrounded his eyes, his breathing wasn't right, and he seemed indefinably frailer. He turned to look at me, and there was the tiniest shudder, just like that flicker, and I caught him just in time.

He'd been nursing pneumonia. Hadn't told anyone and there hadn't been anyone around who knew him well enough to force him off the damn urgent project and make him go to a doctor.

Not that I ever overworked.

"So much weight on you," I rumble, not having missed his half-hearted attempt to reach for me. I know he's an avatar, but if he needed comfort badly enough to reach for me... I hold out a hand to him. "Jin. Let me help you bear it."

[goldenikemen]

I hesitate again, not from pride. I am far beyond the point of showing pride to him right now, moved so far into weariness that I would gladly let him guide me off to bed. Even undress me and tuck me in, as he had to do at least once in our past.

I just. I want to feel it. For real. Not just my Avatar telling me he's touching me. Not just in lingering phantom feelings of his touch.

I accept his hand, and frown. It should be warm, and rough, and strong. But my avatar tells he it's just any other hand touching mine, and I... I hate it.

"You can't help." I admit, somewhat miserably. "Not like you used to."

[loveenetronkurorin]

I nod, agreeing with him, but I'm not about to let go of his damn hand. "I know. I can't force you to eat, I can't put you to bed, I can't... can't do things to you to make you forget you're stressed, for a little while."

I meet his eyes levelly. "But that just means we have to find new ways for me to help. Starting with one question. Is your body uninjured?"

[goldenikemen]

I grip his hand as much as I will allow myself, feeling a strong burst of longing at his words.

Guiding me to my room - not my home, just my little room at at the base - when he still had so much work to do. When I'd been up and awake for going on four days.

Holding me up with one strong arm around my hips as he helped my bleary fingers unbutton my shirt. Undressing me completely, because I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week.

Moving me to the bed, making me lie down despite my protests. I nearly put a pen through my thigh earlier out of exhaustion induced insanity.

Knowing what insomnia feels like, even though I didn't suffer from it.

Asleep before he even gets the blankets around me. Waking up a day and a half later, all tucked in and warm. My laundry folded nearly on my desk for me, freshly washed.

I don't even remember what it feels like to sleep. What dreams are like.

"Our bodies are in stasis, they remain unchanged from the night we were sent to the Subdimension."

[loveenetronkurorin]

Things were so much easier when I only really had him to look after, plus a few staffing issues here and there. Now I have the entire base. It's necessary work, sure, and I don't begrudge it. I even have respect and liking for many of the people under me.

But they're not him. My best friend. The one who used to look after me, too. The one I could gain steadiness from, because if I needed a distraction from whatever was pissing me off, talking to him for a while about his day would usually do it. And somehow he always knew when I needed more, when I needed to be forced to talk, or shoved up against a wall and distracted thoroughly...

"That's something, I suppose," I say quietly, studying his face. "Jin. I know you don't eat. Do you get to sleep? Turn off in any other way?" Doesn't that mess up a human psychologically?

[goldenikemen]

I hesitate, because it's... it's just so hard to talk about with someone that isn't Emi. With someone that doesn't know personally.

"I don't really sleep." I begin, looking down, at our still clasped hands. "We don't really sleep. There are moments of silence, of nothingness, when out Avatars are shut down. But..."

I clear my throat, and shake my head. "I hate when I have to do that."

[loveenetronkurorin]

I grimace, and squeeze his hand gently. "I know you're an Avatar. But you're still human. Isn't the human mind built to need that shut down period now and then?"

I'm not voicing it as a criticism, as a way to try to make him be okay about shut down periods. I'm just concerned. I've seen him on sleep deprivation. It's not pretty. No one should have to go through that.

But if shutting down feels like death...

[goldenikemen]

I almost laugh, though it's bitter, no real hint of mirth behind it.

"The last time I shut down completely was.... five years ago? Give or take a few months?" I sigh, and glance up at him, trying to not look too much like a scolded child.

"Emi shuts down more. Well, less these day. He..." I can't keep the sad, almost nostalgic smile off my face as I remember.

"He used to curl up - his avatar, that is - in the corner of the lab, when he thought it was bedtime, even though he wasn't properly shutting down. Sometimes he'd even curl up between our bodies and..."

Shit.

I shake my head, drawing in a sharp breathe through my nose.

Kurorin doesn't need to hear about this.

[loveenetronkurorin]

"Five years-" I repeat, then I clamp down on myself, forcing calm, because he's already worried about my reaction. That -- that explains so fucking much. That can't be healthy. None of this is healthy! But five years?!

I'm distracted soon enough by his comments about Emeric. "Poor kid," I say roughly, hoarsely. "Poor little kid." And poor Jin, too, having to parent him, under circumstances like that. Jin's more than capable of looking after someone, of being responsible, though I'm sure he wouldn't've found it always easy even if the situation'd been easier. But to be forced together like that. To have to try to be positive and calm like that.

I'm not about to gush at him about it, but I'm sure he knows I feel for him.

[goldenikemen]

"I don't like to shut down, and not just because..." I clear my throat, and shake my head, no sense getting all existential here.

"What if something went wrong? I can't really trust J to remember to activate my avatar as his first instinct all the time. And I won't put that kind of pressure on Emi."

I wander back over to the railing, leaning on it and looking out off the roof, at the city as its lights are starting to really come to life for the night.

"He's a good kid, and smart as shit. He'll be amazing at whatever he chooses to do. When he's allowed the chance to choose it."

[loveenetronkurorin]

It does make him feel like he's dying. As well as making him fear he's dying, because someone will forget him.

Fuck.

"How involved is it to reactivate you, though?" I ask quietly, eyes near boring through the back of his head. "If two of them can do it, can't you trust that one of them will? Can't you just turn off for six hours, now and then? I think you might need it, Jin. Five years..."

I take my jacket off, and hang it neatly over the railing next to him. Evening's warm enough, though I'm sure that if he were actually here, he'd keep his on. He knows he looks good in it.

He used to know that, anyway.

"Not much younger than you were," I observe. Jin already knew what he wanted to do. But he was still too damn young when he was taken, too.

[goldenikemen]

I glance at him, just briefly, then look down at his jacket, staring at it like it's a physical representation of the distance between us, the years and the trails that we weren't able to share.

"Did I ever trust anyone else with that kind of thing?" I say, smiling somewhat bitterly. "How many times did you have to physically drag me away from my desk, or persuade me to let someone else handle something minor that didn't actually need my direct attention?"

I nod at his comment about Emi. "In some ways, yeah, in others he seems years older than I am, was, am supposed to be."

[loveenetronkurorin]

He looks down at my jacket. I keep my face as still as I can.

...thirteen years, and he's still that hopeless. I raise an eyebrow, trying to disguise the shattering inside me. "If you know how ridiculous that is, then you know what you need to do."

I hate that I can't just do it for him. I hate that I can't grouse at him until he takes a goddamn nap, or eats the sandwich I brought him.

"You're an adult, Jin. You've done so much. But part of accepting that you're needed, is accepting that you have limits, and if you go too far past them you might not be able to meet other people's needs."

It's a hard, horrible lesson to learn, and it's one I still have to learn frequently. But if I have to lecture him to try to get him to have the closest thing he can have to sleep, then I'll lecture him until the sun comes up, goes down, comes up again. I do not care.

"He seems like a smart kid. He'll get his chance,' I say quietly. Even if he has to start all over here as physically eleven.

[goldenikemen]

I pick his jacket up and move it on the railing so that it's resting in front of me, keeping my eyes on it as I play with the buttons pinned to it, the ID card dangling on its clip.

I want to know what it feels like, if the fabric us rough and starched or smooth and pliable. I want to know if his scent clings to it. Want to know what he scent is now. If it's changed, if he wears cologne. If he smokes enough now that the smell lingers.

Maybe I'll never know these things. Maybe I'm kidding myself that we can ever bring our bodies back.

I shift, sliding the short distance along the railing until I'm leaning into his side. It doesn't actually help much, but maybe he needs the contact as much as I crave it.

[loveenetronkurorin]

I watch with growing unease as he touches my jacket. He's on the verge of tears, or would be, if he could cry in this form.

And that's the problem, isn't it.

I've seen him this low a few times. But only when it's been something I can actually help with. He needs food, sleep? Fine, I can growl at him until he eats what I brought him. Fine, I can carry him -- sometimes literally -- off to bed.

He needs to be rescued from wherever the hell he actually is?

...I can't do that.

He's done so much, and he needs help, and I can't help him.

He moves along the railing and butts into me. I slip an arm around him automatically, and just as automatically, I tuck his head under my chin. Protective, caring.

Just about useless.

[goldenikemen]

He draws me closer, and tucks my head under his chin. Just like how he used to comfort me in the past. And I want, I want so so badly, to take comfort in the gesture.

I want to just give in and cry quietly against him. Like I'd only done maybe twice in the past, and once was just from hysterical sleep deprivation, over caffeination, and malnourishment. The other time was over a death in my family, someone I should have been closer to, but never took the opportunity to really know, thanks to my work.

I lean into him, pretending I can feel his warmth, hear the steady beat of his heart. I shake, trembling like I am crying, and my avatar wavers slightly again.

"I'm scared, Kurorin." My voice is surprisingly even, if soft and small.

[loveenetronkurorin]

...two. Just two other times.

He lost his shit after doing the impossible, one time. His direct supervisor was an idiot. I'll never regret when he left. He didn't drive Jin into the ground -- well, mostly -- but he didn't take care of his staff well enough. Didn't keep an eye on workloads, just expected work to be done. Didn't watch out for geniuses who don't mind imperfections but can't stand unfinished work.

I'd been flat out with my own work, that time, with security arrangements for a VIP visit, working too long hours myself, and I hadn't caught on that Jin hadn't even had the brief breaks that I'd managed to grab for myself.

His supervisor should've known.

I might've shoved him against a wall and growled in his face, after I got Jin settled, that time.

The other time was harder. His relative. I had to do my own research to find out just who. It was difficult enough to get even that much out of him, but when he'd just spent an hour crying himself to sleep against me, I'd figured it was necessary that I find out what'd happened.

I hadn't been able to help so much, that time. But at least I'd been able to be there, with him. At least he'd been able to sleep, while I watched over him, and then slept beside him.

Can't do any of that, this time.

My eyes close briefly at his words, and I squeeze him a little more tightly. "Of course you are," I say, as calmly as possible. I'm sure he still has an idea of just how fucking tense I am underneath. Even after thirteen years he still reads me better than anyone else. But it's important that he sees both, anyway. Important that he knows that it's all right to be scared, that I'm worried, too, but that I'll help us both control it so we can find solutions.

"Anyone would be scared." My other arm comes up around him. My voice is a low rumble in my chest. "But you have the rest of us again, now, and we'll help you. I won't let you vanish, Jin. We'll help you."