[There isn't even an answering machine message here, only some horrible recreation of the theme from that one SBaHJ video he did made completely of clips of different bird calls.]
[He curls his hand closed, and only then seems to realize he's been holding it against his chest the whole time. He moves it down to his side and pushes himself back into the wall, letting out a breath.]
...Makes it harder to be a self-sacrificing asshole.
[He mutters it, but without any rancor at all. Mostly he just sounds sorry.]
[ Every last word out of his mouth right now feels like a barb specially designed to tear at all her softest and most vulnerable pieces. She wants to put her hands over her ears, to tell him to stop, but she can't hide from this. Not now. Not when she has this chance.
Still, she knows that a true answer to his question will just result in a complete impasse. And she doesn't want that, either. ]
... I can't promise I won't try, [ is what she finally says, muted and desperately unhappy. ] But... if it's something you have to do... I won't stand in your way.
[ She sounds so upset. She is upset. The thought of him risking his life again, even dying, tears her open and leaves her to bleed. And it's ten times worse if she thinks of him doing it for her sake. She huffs out a shaky breath and buries her face in her arms again, curling her hands over her head like she can shield herself from the world. ]
[He hates seeing her like this. He hates even more that he brought her to this; that she's unhappy because of him.
All he wants to do is make her happy.]
Okay.
[He remembers looking at her, knowing that she knew what he knew when they saw Sephiroth's shadow in the sky. He remembers how he felt when she let him go.
If it's her, it's okay.]
I trust you.
[He slumps as he says it, sliding down the wall almost to match her, the length of his tail curled in a loose knot that he rests his head against, hiding his face.]
[ She doesn't say anything to that. She can't fathom how he trusts her now, when she's all but told him she'll interfere if he tries to sacrifice himself again. And she can't fathom the break in her own trust, her feelings of betrayal that he'd do it at all.
The thought that finally spurs her to move - a long, quiet two minutes later - is:
If I were in his shoes, what would I do?
Knowing that answer finally breaks her hard, bitter resolve. She pushes herself off the floor and pads over to him, careful and a little hesitant. Gently she settles by his side, curling up on the floor again and circling both her arms around one of his, leaning her head on his shoulder. She says not a word. She just stays there, careful and loving and in love and scared of the future. ]
[He lets out a long breath when she takes his arm, an exhalation that shivers at the edges like a fraying thread. After a moment he lifts his head again and pushes the heel of his hand against his forehead, slowly dragging his hair out of his face.]
Xion, I. I haven't told this to anybody. Not really. Dirk figured it out, but...he's the one who asked me about it. And I don't know if I'm right.
[He pushes his tail away and leans back against the wall again, reaching across himself to touch one of her hands.]
[ Something about his words stills her. Deep in her core, like a wind cut off, and her thoughts are the leaf left to twirl, lifeless, to the ground. Solitary and suddenly still.
[It hurts, the way she looks at him like that. The hand that's not touching hers moves upward to feel at his chest again, because fuck everything, he still feels that sword in him like it left something there--the outline of its blade cast indelibly in the molecules of his body. He pulls into himself, holding her hand against his arm as an anchor.]
I told you how I came back from a doomed offshoot of Dave's timeline to make sure my friends wouldn't die.
By stopping it in his timeline--by stopping what split my timeline from his in the first place--I made my timeline not exist. I made it so it never happened.
[He has to pause. This is the black hole eating at the center of him; he can only orbit it obliquely or it will destroy him utterly.]
Rose stopped existing. My Rose. She managed to leave some of her memories with Dave's Rose, but she was gone, because that timeline didn't happen.
[ She's silent for a long moment, tucking herself tighter against him and holding his hush against her like it is something precious she has to protect.
She wants to protect him. She has never felt that way about anyone else, ever. ]
... I told you ... that I'm made of memories. They belong to a boy named Sora. ... I made the decision that I had to go back. I'm like ... a piece of him. And without me ... he was never going to wake up. So I ran away for the last time, and I tried to do what was right. But at the last second, one of my best friends... came to stop me.
[ If you return your memories to him, you'll disappear. And since everything about you was built on those memories...no one will remember you when you're gone. There won't be any "you" to remember. I can't save you, Xion--even a memory of you. ]
In the end, though... it didn't matter. I still ... went back. And the thing is, when my memories went back to Sora... that meant that I disappeared completely. There wasn't any "me" left to remember.... so I ceased to exist. And everyone who ever knew me... forgot me completely. [ She quiets, for a moment. ] ... that's why Xigbar couldn't remember me, when he first got here.
I know what it's like ... to disappear. But ... I'm here. Even though I shouldn't be. And you ... you know who I am. [ She looks up at him with sweet, sad sympathy. ] If I'm real... then you are, too.
[He listens without saying anything, without looking at her, so that the only indication he's paying attention--the only indication he's hanging on every word like her voice is a lifeline over a pit--is the way his breathing changes. The way he swallows when she mentions her friend trying to stop her. The way he clings to her hand as if to reassure himself that she's there. Or that he is.
The breath he takes shudders in the quiet pause after she says what hurts him most: Everyone who ever knew her forgot her, completely. What felt shaky in him before now feels completely broken loose, adrift, cold and alone, and he doesn't return her gaze when she looks up at him.
He just leans into her, weightless and warm, and rests his face in her hair. He holds her arm to him still; holds her hand tighter. His voice hovers on the edge of breaking, gummed up and strained in the back of his throat.]
[ God. Whatever she's got that passes for a heart is breaking in her chest. She can feel it, something tight and splintery and awful, and breathing around it is a slow and laborious process. She breathes in sighs. Careful, sad sighs.
It was my choice ... to go away now.
What does she say to that?
Did she ... ever want to go? She knew she had to. But ... did she want to, really?
Contemplating that question is like standing on the very end of a dark chasm of which she cannot see the bottom, and she wants nothing more than to pull back from the edge. But with Davesprite holding onto her, breathing his fear into her hair, she can't. She can't do anything but stare into that terrible abyss. ]
... I don't want you to go either, [ is what she finally says, tiny and plaintive. It probably isn't helpful. ]
Dave... when I went away, I ... I made that choice. I knew what I was doing... and what would happen to me. How do you know for sure that ... you're not different? That ... you won't have a choice in it after all? Maybe ... I just don't want to give up hope. Not yet.
[ And then she simply gathers him into her arms. She twists her body, reaching across so she can pull him close to her properly and hold him there, right there, where they are both warm and alive and real. ]
[That close, that heartbreakingly close, there's no hiding the way his breath wavers, unsteady. He holds each breath as long as he can, as if, should he let them go, all his control might dissolve.
He clenches his hands in the hem of her shirt. He still doesn't know how to reach out, how to ask for comfort. He doesn't know how to let himself need her, even when he does.]
I made that choice, when I went back. Maybe I didn't--understand, exactly, what it would mean for me, but I...I wouldn't take it back. Even now. I wouldn't.
[He shivers in her arms. It feels like right now she's the only thing keeping him there, the only solid weight holding him to the world.]
[ Her eyes sting. It feels like the tempo of her body has been shifted, bound in lockstep to his so that when his rhythms falter, hers do too. She is certain that if she had a heart it would beat in perfect time with his. His breath is her breath; and his pain is hers also. They are each other's, even in this, and she feels it with a keenness that would shame the razor edge of a new blade.
She doesn't understand it. Where her internal monologue should be is a buzzing silence instead. He is going to break her, and she will dissolve into pieces and flow right into him, where she feels so much she belongs.
Xion tilts her head and nuzzles him, gently, pressing her cheek to his and breathing soft against his ear. ]
... I never thought so. If I were really brave... I would have stood up to the Organization a lot sooner, or left for good a long time before I really did. I was just ... I was doing what I had to do. There wasn't any other way. Sora... so many people needed him. And I ... I just couldn't keep him away from them.
[ Briefly she buries her face into his neck, her lips brushing over the skin just above his ruff, before lifting her chin again. ]
I know you made that choice. But... but I have to believe that it wasn't the last choice you'll get to make. There has to be-- there has to be just one more option. I chose to disappear, so, Dave... maybe you'll get to choose to stay. [ Her voice drops to a whisper. ] Maybe you'll get to take the alternative that I couldn't. I refuse to believe you won't get a chance. I couldn't take it if you didn't.
[ Her arms tighten around him. Davesprite isn't the only person in the room who is afraid of being left. ]
[Every time Dirk or Bro made him cry before, it felt like breaking, like someone put too much pressure on his edge and he snapped like a cheap blade, and the emotion flooded out of him until he was empty.
This is slow, like the snowfall on Jade's silent planet. Slow like falling apart in Xion's arms, like diffusing into the air like a breath of light.]
But I won't. [There's a kind of despair that sounds almost like something funny, like he's spent so long staring his end in the face it's like an old friend whose humorless jokes have become familiar. He accepts it despondently, but desperately. But tenderly. But sadly, stubbornly proud.] It always comes down to the same thing. Even if I had the choice again, I know what I'd pick.
[He lets go of her shirt to slide his arms gently around her, to bend his neck and rest his head on her shoulder--to let Xion hold him safe.
It always comes down to this: him, or someone he loves.
He will go even if it rips him apart, because the alternative is worse. The alternative isn't even a choice, unless breathing, unless muscle memory is a choice. The alternative is unthinkable.
His voice is so small when he speaks again.]
I'm sorry.
[His breath skips like a bad record, shudders on the way out. Something warm and slow and wet traces down his cheek. His lungs jerk when he sniffs. That stubborn resignation is gone--he can only plea, now, helplessly. Please understand. Please don't take this away from him.]
All at once she bursts into tears, finally giving way under the anguish and the horror of the idea of losing him. It's the wretched grief of his death all over again, hitting her in tsunamic waves. At the time of his death she was in the middle of a war and had no choice but to carry on, broken though she was, held together only by the frayed strings of insane desperation, rage, guilt, and myopic determination. But now the war is over. Now he is here. And even though he's back, he's telling her he can't stay, and she can't take it.
She sobs into his shirt, all the tears she's held inside her since the moment he disappeared from her arms bursting from her. What she's doing now is not holding him, or hugging him; she is desperately clinging like he is the last life raft on a frigid ocean whose dark depths she is terrified of sinking into. ]
I'm not like Dirk. [ Her voice is thick and a little nasal. ] I'm not strong enough to tell you it's okay to go. I don't want you to leave. [ She clings all the harder, still crying brokenly, unable to stop, and her voice is small like his. ] Please don't leave me again.
[And even as she yanks a round of his own ragged tears out of him, he's gathering her up, lifting her against his chest to carry all her weight because he is hers entirely. He wraps his wings around them because even embedded in the heat of his own misery, he is hers, he is her knight, and he can't stand her unhappiness. It cuts right through him, white-hot and electric.]
Xion, I c--I can't--
[His sobs are silent, but he has to breathe in great, big gulps of air, like a man drowning, like a child left alone in the dark. He tightens his hands in her shirt, curled so close around her he could be a second skin.]
But I swear, if it's here--if you're here, in the city, it doesn't matter what happens. I'll come back. As long as you're here, I'll come back to you.
[His promise is fierce and pure. No sadness, despite the tears on his face. No pride, because this is all he is--this is all for her.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Her question makes him falter slightly.]
Yes. No. I don't know. [He breathes in, then out.] No, yeah, I do. It's about protecting you, but that doesn't mean I think you can't hold your own.
[He lowers his shoulders gradually, though he's still afraid she'll--what? Yell at him again?
No, he's afraid she'll leave.]
It's just. If I have the power to stop something bad from happening to someone I care a lot about, why wouldn't I do it.
no subject
[ Her voice is soft, and when she says it she lets her body slide slowly to the floor and buries her face in her arms. ]
no subject
I'm sorry. I couldn't do it any other way.
no subject
Don't ever do anything like that again. Not without telling me first.
no subject
Xion, I can't--don't make me promise that.
no subject
... I'm not telling you not to do it at all. I'm just asking you to tell me first. You can't even do that...?
no subject
...Makes it harder to be a self-sacrificing asshole.
[He mutters it, but without any rancor at all. Mostly he just sounds sorry.]
Will you stop me, if I do?
no subject
Still, she knows that a true answer to his question will just result in a complete impasse. And she doesn't want that, either. ]
... I can't promise I won't try, [ is what she finally says, muted and desperately unhappy. ] But... if it's something you have to do... I won't stand in your way.
[ She sounds so upset. She is upset. The thought of him risking his life again, even dying, tears her open and leaves her to bleed. And it's ten times worse if she thinks of him doing it for her sake. She huffs out a shaky breath and buries her face in her arms again, curling her hands over her head like she can shield herself from the world. ]
no subject
All he wants to do is make her happy.]
Okay.
[He remembers looking at her, knowing that she knew what he knew when they saw Sephiroth's shadow in the sky. He remembers how he felt when she let him go.
If it's her, it's okay.]
I trust you.
[He slumps as he says it, sliding down the wall almost to match her, the length of his tail curled in a loose knot that he rests his head against, hiding his face.]
Thanks.
no subject
The thought that finally spurs her to move - a long, quiet two minutes later - is:
If I were in his shoes, what would I do?
Knowing that answer finally breaks her hard, bitter resolve. She pushes herself off the floor and pads over to him, careful and a little hesitant. Gently she settles by his side, curling up on the floor again and circling both her arms around one of his, leaning her head on his shoulder. She says not a word. She just stays there, careful and loving and in love and scared of the future. ]
no subject
Xion, I. I haven't told this to anybody. Not really. Dirk figured it out, but...he's the one who asked me about it. And I don't know if I'm right.
[He pushes his tail away and leans back against the wall again, reaching across himself to touch one of her hands.]
But you asked, so.
no subject
She looks up at him, eyes big and searching. ]
... what is it?
no subject
I told you how I came back from a doomed offshoot of Dave's timeline to make sure my friends wouldn't die.
no subject
.... yeah. [ Carefully, she shifts her hand so she can intertwine her fingers with his. ]
no subject
[He has to pause. This is the black hole eating at the center of him; he can only orbit it obliquely or it will destroy him utterly.]
Rose stopped existing. My Rose. She managed to leave some of her memories with Dave's Rose, but she was gone, because that timeline didn't happen.
no subject
[ She speaks with knowing. ]
Dave, when you.... when you died.... were you scared that ... you'd stop existing too?
no subject
...It's gonna happen eventually.
[The weight of it hushes him.]
It happened to all the other offshoot Daves. We don't transfer, or anything. When the timeline doesn't need us anymore, we're just gone.
no subject
She wants to protect him. She has never felt that way about anyone else, ever. ]
... I told you ... that I'm made of memories. They belong to a boy named Sora. ... I made the decision that I had to go back. I'm like ... a piece of him. And without me ... he was never going to wake up. So I ran away for the last time, and I tried to do what was right. But at the last second, one of my best friends... came to stop me.
[ If you return your memories to him, you'll disappear. And since everything about you was built on those memories...no one will remember you when you're gone. There won't be any "you" to remember. I can't save you, Xion--even a memory of you. ]
In the end, though... it didn't matter. I still ... went back. And the thing is, when my memories went back to Sora... that meant that I disappeared completely. There wasn't any "me" left to remember.... so I ceased to exist. And everyone who ever knew me... forgot me completely. [ She quiets, for a moment. ] ... that's why Xigbar couldn't remember me, when he first got here.
I know what it's like ... to disappear. But ... I'm here. Even though I shouldn't be. And you ... you know who I am. [ She looks up at him with sweet, sad sympathy. ] If I'm real... then you are, too.
no subject
The breath he takes shudders in the quiet pause after she says what hurts him most: Everyone who ever knew her forgot her, completely. What felt shaky in him before now feels completely broken loose, adrift, cold and alone, and he doesn't return her gaze when she looks up at him.
He just leans into her, weightless and warm, and rests his face in her hair. He holds her arm to him still; holds her hand tighter. His voice hovers on the edge of breaking, gummed up and strained in the back of his throat.]
I don't want to go.
[His breath barely stirs her hair.]
I don't want to go away.
no subject
It was my choice ... to go away now.
What does she say to that?
Did she ... ever want to go? She knew she had to. But ... did she want to, really?
Contemplating that question is like standing on the very end of a dark chasm of which she cannot see the bottom, and she wants nothing more than to pull back from the edge. But with Davesprite holding onto her, breathing his fear into her hair, she can't. She can't do anything but stare into that terrible abyss. ]
... I don't want you to go either, [ is what she finally says, tiny and plaintive. It probably isn't helpful. ]
Dave... when I went away, I ... I made that choice. I knew what I was doing... and what would happen to me. How do you know for sure that ... you're not different? That ... you won't have a choice in it after all? Maybe ... I just don't want to give up hope. Not yet.
[ And then she simply gathers him into her arms. She twists her body, reaching across so she can pull him close to her properly and hold him there, right there, where they are both warm and alive and real. ]
no subject
He clenches his hands in the hem of her shirt. He still doesn't know how to reach out, how to ask for comfort. He doesn't know how to let himself need her, even when he does.]
I made that choice, when I went back. Maybe I didn't--understand, exactly, what it would mean for me, but I...I wouldn't take it back. Even now. I wouldn't.
[He shivers in her arms. It feels like right now she's the only thing keeping him there, the only solid weight holding him to the world.]
I'm just waiting.
[If this keeps going, he's going to cry.]
You're so fuckin' brave.
no subject
She doesn't understand it. Where her internal monologue should be is a buzzing silence instead. He is going to break her, and she will dissolve into pieces and flow right into him, where she feels so much she belongs.
Xion tilts her head and nuzzles him, gently, pressing her cheek to his and breathing soft against his ear. ]
... I never thought so. If I were really brave... I would have stood up to the Organization a lot sooner, or left for good a long time before I really did. I was just ... I was doing what I had to do. There wasn't any other way. Sora... so many people needed him. And I ... I just couldn't keep him away from them.
[ Briefly she buries her face into his neck, her lips brushing over the skin just above his ruff, before lifting her chin again. ]
I know you made that choice. But... but I have to believe that it wasn't the last choice you'll get to make. There has to be-- there has to be just one more option. I chose to disappear, so, Dave... maybe you'll get to choose to stay. [ Her voice drops to a whisper. ] Maybe you'll get to take the alternative that I couldn't. I refuse to believe you won't get a chance. I couldn't take it if you didn't.
[ Her arms tighten around him. Davesprite isn't the only person in the room who is afraid of being left. ]
no subject
This is slow, like the snowfall on Jade's silent planet. Slow like falling apart in Xion's arms, like diffusing into the air like a breath of light.]
But I won't. [There's a kind of despair that sounds almost like something funny, like he's spent so long staring his end in the face it's like an old friend whose humorless jokes have become familiar. He accepts it despondently, but desperately. But tenderly. But sadly, stubbornly proud.] It always comes down to the same thing. Even if I had the choice again, I know what I'd pick.
[He lets go of her shirt to slide his arms gently around her, to bend his neck and rest his head on her shoulder--to let Xion hold him safe.
It always comes down to this: him, or someone he loves.
He will go even if it rips him apart, because the alternative is worse. The alternative isn't even a choice, unless breathing, unless muscle memory is a choice. The alternative is unthinkable.
His voice is so small when he speaks again.]
I'm sorry.
[His breath skips like a bad record, shudders on the way out. Something warm and slow and wet traces down his cheek. His lungs jerk when he sniffs. That stubborn resignation is gone--he can only plea, now, helplessly. Please understand. Please don't take this away from him.]
I can't--I can't do anything else.
no subject
All at once she bursts into tears, finally giving way under the anguish and the horror of the idea of losing him. It's the wretched grief of his death all over again, hitting her in tsunamic waves. At the time of his death she was in the middle of a war and had no choice but to carry on, broken though she was, held together only by the frayed strings of insane desperation, rage, guilt, and myopic determination. But now the war is over. Now he is here. And even though he's back, he's telling her he can't stay, and she can't take it.
She sobs into his shirt, all the tears she's held inside her since the moment he disappeared from her arms bursting from her. What she's doing now is not holding him, or hugging him; she is desperately clinging like he is the last life raft on a frigid ocean whose dark depths she is terrified of sinking into. ]
I'm not like Dirk. [ Her voice is thick and a little nasal. ] I'm not strong enough to tell you it's okay to go. I don't want you to leave. [ She clings all the harder, still crying brokenly, unable to stop, and her voice is small like his. ] Please don't leave me again.
no subject
Xion, I c--I can't--
[His sobs are silent, but he has to breathe in great, big gulps of air, like a man drowning, like a child left alone in the dark. He tightens his hands in her shirt, curled so close around her he could be a second skin.]
But I swear, if it's here--if you're here, in the city, it doesn't matter what happens. I'll come back. As long as you're here, I'll come back to you.
[His promise is fierce and pure. No sadness, despite the tears on his face. No pride, because this is all he is--this is all for her.]
I will never leave you alone.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)