Christmas "Meme"

[snakewithbaggage]

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
Suzu ga naru
Suzu no rizumu ni hikari no wa ga mau
Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
Suzu ga naru
Mori ni hayashi ni hibikinagara

Welcome to the Dinohouse Christmas "meme"! This is going to work a bit differently from most memes, but still free free to do what you want here!

The idea:
Following this post I will be making an assortment of Universe/Location "thread" comments. These will define the specific scene and universe being worked in. Comments by applicable characters will follow under that comment.

Example:
Mushverse; Shiba Mansion; open to Shinkengers

Comments following that would all be set in the Mushverse universe, be by any Shinkengers that want to participate, and take place at the Shiba Mansion Christmas party. Think of it sort of like every "top level" comment is its own post to the community.

Following that example, if your desired AU/Canon/etc isn't there, feel free to make a "thread" for it! Say there's already a Mushverse Go-busters "thread", and you want to do something in Aibouverse, or something more canon, maybe just between two characters? Make one!

Comments following the "thread" headings can be group setting free for all, or between individuals. Say it's a canon GokaiGalleon party, and Gai and Luka want to go off alone, or are on their way to the Galleon together? Their thread can be a separate second level comment thread beneath the main Canon Gokaiger thread.

I know that's a lot of information/qualifiers, but don't let it make you nervous to post, "rules" are fluid, and mainly set for added organization.

HAVE FUN. And enjoy the season!

Comments

[goldenikemen]

I hover for a moment, then gradually let go of the door frame, step away from the door and more into the room, hands at my hips.

"I do." I brush my fingertips along my containment compartment as I move closer to Emi, just giving my own body a passing glance before I look back to Emi.

And glance at his body.

Sigh.

I lean back against my... box, arms crossed over my chest, and sigh.

"I do."

[silverpleather]

He moves closer. He pays his body scarcely a passing glance. As usual. He's never had much use for it. He doesn't fixate, like I do.

Things haven't changed, for him.

It's not the same.

I look up at him when he leans back against the box holding his body. For all that I'm used to him, used to his face, that is a little unnerving. Like there's two of him... I look back down at my own youthful face.

"I used to think it was Etienne, you know. Or, non. I never really thought that. But I used to pretend."

[goldenikemen]

It's like the rug is pulled out from under me. Momentarily. When he mentions the one thing I'd been thinking about, that I was so sure was only my imagination.

He clarifies, of course, but it still... hurt.

"Emi." I move closer, closer to his avatar, and to his body. I rest a hand on his containment compartment, near where his small body's heart is.

"You know I don't think of you as a child."

[silverpleather]

"Well, good." I lift my head and force my face into a cocky smirk, though I'm sure it doesn't reach my eyes. "Because I'm not a child." I tap two fingers on the top of the box. It makes a hollow sound. "This... This is not me. Not anymore. I do not... I don't care."

I swallow, wishing it would mean something, wishing I could feel it.

"Do you remember things, Masato? The way things feel?"

The question is out of me before I even realize it, and I pull back immediately. "You don't have to answer that. It is crass."

[goldenikemen]

"It's not crass." I tell him quickly, almost sharply. Wanting to scold him for thinking he couldn't ask me anything. Anything in this world.

I raised him. I watched him grow... helped him grow. Anything he asks, I will answer, no matter what it is.

"You know you can ask me anything, anytime." I sigh, spreading my fingers out over the glass of his... casket.

"I remember how a lot of things feel, mundane things, like sunlight, and snow melting against my skin. Things I'm sure you also remember."

I look back at Emi, staring gently at him. "But maybe you're asking about less mundane things?"

[silverpleather]

His tone startles me at first, but once I tear my eyes away from my own sleeping face, I realize that he's looking at me... So fondly.

He loves me. Like a father, or a brother. I feel the same way about him, it's true. For so long, we only had each other. For so much of my formative life, I only had him to model myself after.

I nod in agreement with his words. Anything I want to know, he wants me to ask. I think he wants to be able to answer me as much as I want answers.

My eyes are drawn back down, to his hand, long fingers spreading out over the protective cover.

"Sun and snow? Sun and snow, Aibou? You're losing your touch, that was almost normal." I tease him gently, because I know this conversation isn't going to go anywhere good for either of us.

"But you know... You know that's not what I mean."

I might as well be honest with him. "I kissed Hiromu tonight. Earlier, a while yet before the party."

[goldenikemen]

I nod at his words, voice even and serious. "I know."

He doesn't tell me anything I didn't already suspect, based on the way he reacted to my insistence that he leave the party. I already sensed his affection for Hiromu, and Hiromu's returned affection.

I would have to be blind and deft and dumb to have not. They shine when they're near each other.

They love each other.

"And you want to know if I remember what that feels like?"

[silverpleather]

I'm not really surprised that he knows. Of course he does. I've never really been able to keep secrets from him, he knows all of my tells. Turnabout is fair play, I know all of his tells too. We'd be a force to be reckoned with playing team poker...

I shake my head and look up at him and take a shaky breath that does nothing, especially not down here. It's only for my own benefit.

"I want to know what it feels like." I say softly, and my voice cracks a little at the end. "Zut." I mutter, mostly to myself, looking away.

[goldenikemen]

I watch him as he speaks, as his voice cracks and he curses, as he looks away.

"Aibou..." My heart goes out to him, deeply, painfully.

I reach out to him, sliding my hand along his containment box, reaching for his hand.

"Do you want me to describe it or...." I clear my throat, and sigh again, trying to find the words. "Or I can isolate those memories from my own data, and download them into yours. It wouldn't be like your own memories, but you could accept them for... for knowledge's sake."

[silverpleather]

I notice his hand scooting across the cover and I move my hand to wear he can reach it. Not real feeling, but the intent is there, and the idea behind it. Plus, with our hands clasped together like that right there, I'm less tempted to stare down at my eleven year old face.

"Don't do that." I choke out after a moment of considering the two options he gives me. "The last thing I need right now is another reminder that we're not... real people." I smirk weakly at that and shake my head. "I... I just want to know. I want to feel it. I want to feel his hand in mine, his breath on my cheek, I want..." My hand tightens on his. "What if I can't?"

[goldenikemen]

This is so difficult.

It would be easier if I could reassure him that once, if and when, we get our bodies back that he'll be able to have those things, feel those things. Know those things.

I glance down at Emi's body, trying to keep my face from looking too sad.

But it's so much more complicated than that.

"I don't have an answer for that." I sigh, and shake my head.

[silverpleather]

"I know you don't." I say softly. "I don't think I ever really expected you to."

He looks down, and I can't help but follow his gaze.

When... if I ever get to feel Hiromu's hand in my own, it won't be right at all. My hand will be too small, my grip too weak.

"I'm scared, aibou."

[goldenikemen]

I'm torn.

I haven't heard him admit that he was scared in years, not since he was much younger, not since he looked a whole lot more like his body.

Back then I would put both arms around him, crouching down a bit, just so I could be a bit more on his level, and give him a tight hug that he couldn't really feel. Just because it might, just might on some small level, help him feel better.

And maybe he'd understand, even though I always left it unspoken, that I was scared too.

He's taller than me now, and I can't even remember when exactly that happened. For a while I used to track his "height" on the wall, as a method to make him feel as real as he could inside his avatar. He was a little old for that, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway, and so I kept doing it for a little while, until he started helping me with his avatar modifications, only two years after we were stuck down here.

He's so smart. Such a smart kid.

He'll always be a kid to me, in some ways. Like how even Ryuuji will always be a kid to Kurorin. He's my Aibou, a grown man, but still...

I don't wrap him up in a hug, but I do throw an arm around his shoulders and tug him a little closer.

"When you used to get scared I'd sing to you sometimes, remember? Of course the only French song I knew was Frère Jacques..." And then, I only knew it well because I'd sometimes catch Emi singing to himself, all hunched up between our bodies, leaning against mine and looking at his own.

[silverpleather]

I'm surprised I even admitted it. But then, it's been hanging over me like a cloud for months now. I suppose I had to face it eventually, and what better place than here, with Masato who knows me better than anyone?

He's not looking at my body anymore, he's looking across it, past his, to the wall behind. There's still little marks etched there, showing how 'tall' I was getting. How tall we were making the avatar be, anyway. But I liked it, as a kid. I liked feeling like I was growing up, even if I knew at the time there was something wrong, my body wasn't changing, Masato wasn't changing. It was just me, just for me. So my body could keep up with my mind.

That makes my stomach twist, though it's metaphorical, of course.

Everything is metaphorical, these days.

He puts an arm around my shoulders, I can sense the weight of it, the presence. And he gives me a little tug, and I let him, though he's shorter than me now, and we're equally strong.

I smirk a bit, and nod. "I remember." His pronunciation was atrocious at first, but he got better. He got to the point where he sang it like... Like I did. Like I could. I never corrected him, and only sang along for the last line, because the bells ringing was always our favorite part. I never did figure out how he got better. "It made me feel safe."

I lean against him a bit, duck just a bit so my head rests on his shoulder.

"Joyeux Noël, papa."

I surprise myself there. I haven't made that slip, called him that, in years. I rarely called my own father papa, he was almost always tou san, even when we were in France.

[goldenikemen]

He calls me papa, and I'm caught up in a current of emotions, scarps of memory washing up on the shore. I'd be choked up, if I could be choked up.

I let out a slow sigh, mostly for show, and give his shoulder a little squeeze.

"Merry Christmas, Emeric. My Aibou."

[silverpleather]

I sniff. It's reflexive, it doesn't do anything, it doesn't even really mean anything. But I sniff all the same, and my heart hurts, and I lean against my partner, and not for the first time in the past thirteen years, I wish this stupid hard-light image of me could cry.

"I suppose I should turn off for a bit." I say softly after a moment of simply appreciating his presence. It's so lonely down here since we sent Jueki and Kotako up to the overworld. "I'm sorry, Masato. For pushing myself, for scaring you."

[goldenikemen]

I shake my head, and hush him like I did when he was a boy. "It's okay. No lasting harm done."

I give him one last grip with my hand then slowly release him, moving my hands to my hips. "Probably for the best. I'll be along after you shortly."

I won't really, but he doesn't need to know that.

[silverpleather]

I feel very young right now. I sigh at his agreement with my self-imposed punishment, though I doubt he thinks of it that way.

It is like a punishment, though. I hate it. It's like...

Like death, I imagine. A whole lot of nothing, and then I come back and time has passed without me.

I cross to the control panel we use for most stuff. I don't believe for a moment that he's actually going to shut off with me, but I'll play his game with him.

"Don't forget to make sure Jueki actually reactivates us in a little while. I don't want to miss too much time."

I leave him with that, pressing a few keys on the control panel. Before everything fades, I shoot him a look.

"Bonsoir, Aibou."