awashlogs | [ CATCH-ALL ] mixing memory and desire.

[ dextera is, of course, distantly aware of the wrongness of the quests this month. he’s been here long enough to know by now that playing along with cruelty is never actually what this place wants—with the exception that having his day ruined once a few months ago seemed to get guren a nice little ring for his unintended efforts.

with the volatility of his emotions, however, it might be impossible to not accidentally complete a quest or two.

that’s not on his mind, however, when he reaches out to do the usual contact of his brother. it’s not that they don’t spend plenty of time together, but even when they’re in separate houses, he feels the need to just make sure sinistra is still responding. call it a leftover habit. ]

Would you like to come over for dinner?

[ Sinistra no longer gets surprised when his brother invites him by. He looks forward to it, having eased into the idea of physically being there. Encountering Prompto one on one might have improved his outlook of the Bluohaus, though apprehension will likely always settle into him when he opens that door. He won't ever forget what he did.

He shouldn't.

He's a day or so into healing after Shiho helped him with his shoulder, so he's been keeping at rest in his home. Sinistra can't say no to his brother, though, so he immediately responds when he sees the message on his laptop. Typing one-handed is difficult, but he manages. ]

yes i would

[ that isn’t his brother’s usual typing style, and dextera immediately recognizes it and worries because of it—if it were anyone else, he might not suspect a thing, but his brother is more prone to trouble than anyone. ]

Are you OK? You don’t need to push yourself if you can’t.

im fine 11 shiho helped me it just needs to heal a little

i am hungry i want to

[ it sounds like his brother, to follow the offer of food, and dextera thinks that he can get any other information out of a real conversation instead of his brother pushing himself to type out an explanation.

so he nods to his laptop, and then remembers sinistra can’t see him. ]

I’ll cook for you. Come whenever you want to.

[ His brother is even cooking for him? He's even more inclined to go now. There's something extra special about food if Dextera makes it for him.]

im on my way

[ It might take him a little bit to hike over, but he knocks on the door gently with his good hand and waits patiently for his brother to answer. He doesn't feel like barging in after such a chaotic week. ]

[ dextera is ready for his brother when he arrives, and he immediately looks over the arm that must be busted—call it twin instincts that lets him know it’s an arm and not something else. tenderly, he brushes his fingers down his brother’s bicep. ]

I guess you are okay.

[ it just needs to heal a little, he said… that’s fine. ]

[ He watches his brother's hand, nearly flinching but managing to hold still. His brother wasn't the grabby sort. He can trust him to be gentle.

He nods to reassure him his assumption is true, smiling just a bit. ]

It's only sore now. It will be better soon enough, little brother.

Heh.

[ dextera is in an unusual mood. he feels quite happy, but to say that he is may be mistaking the tentative nature of it. he’s glad to see his brother, he’s glad they’re both here, but there’s something to it. the house feels emptier without joshua and estelle, and noctis has been so pained, too. ]

Come in. I had a good idea.

Mm.

[ He nods again, grabbing his brother's sleeve between his fingers and waiting for him to lead. Dextera looks encouraged about whatever he's rattling around in his brain. Sinistra is already anticipating it. ]

I look forward to it.

[ dextera is encouraged. it’s something his brother will appreciate, after all, and something that he’s sort of had on his mind anyway since he peeked at guren in the mirror. it’s hard not to yearn for what’s missing, knowing that it’s been about a year since they met. ]

Sit down.

[ he motions for his brother to take a seat at the table, but sinistra can probably still see what’s laid out—chicken, colorless, eggs, and a few vegetables. some of the things have color and plenty of others don’t, but they’ve both been in this town long enough to know that the ashy flavor will ruin everything… hmm! he hasn’t started cooking yet, though. ]

[ He follows orders and sits as his brother instructed, hands folded over his knees. He sees a whole lot of food, some appealing and some a future disaster, but he's excited about it all the same. ]

What are we making?

Something…

[ he pauses. ]

Something Guren showed me how to make. A lot of it has lost color since then, but…

[ dextera wants to remember him, and a conversation with link reminded him that he has something—from guren, in fact!—that will help make this meal as much of a success as it could possibly be, provided he cooks it all correctly. ]

That is fine. I'll eat it either way if we make it together.

[ He says as he picks over the food curiously, trying to figure out what could be made by combining it all. ]

[ dextera invites his brother a little closer, to get a look at the ingredients—and if he were in better condition, to help him cook, but dextera can handle most of this on his own. he sets to it, not quite merrily, but with an eagerness to get it done that makes him seem happy. ]

Brother, I think you can use one hand to do this…

[ dextera holds an onion in place, and passes sinistra a knife. ]

Cut it with me.

[ the quest is not a promising one, but there’s a way to finagle something useful out of it for both of them.

dextera needs the hearts, after all, and as far as he understands it, jion needs to offload them. he remembers jion saying something about wanting to keep a few on hand for the sake of his peace of mind, but surely it wouldn’t have gotten brought up in the first place if he thought dextera would actually kill him in the process. there’s enough danger to make it scary, but hopefully not so much as to make it fatal. ]

I don’t want to hurt you.

[ …more than necessary, that is. ]

Should you be the one to open your chest?

[ It's fine. This is fine. This is fine! In fact, it's good! Right? It's a quest, after all, so they'll get something out of it! And Dex gets a nice, hearty meal! So it's good! It's all good!

Jion isn't aware of it, but he's a little sweaty from nerves, distracted as he loops that uneasy mantra in his head, and he looks up with a small start at Dextera's question. ] -- huh? Oh, um. Right. Right, sure. Yeah, that'd make it easier for you.

[ He gives a wobbly laugh as he nods, then digs around his medpack for his usual scalpel. ]

Um, the quest was ... 'give someone a near-death experience,' right? So I think you have to do the actual, uh. Extraction. You'll have to take it out, though. [ He'd already removed his shirt, so he doesn't pause at all as he stabs the scalpel into his chest, right at the sternum. ] Sorry, I hope that's okay.

It’s okay.

[ dextera doesn’t mention how many people he’s killed before. it wouldn’t help, in this situation—those were people he strangled and slashed, and the only hearts he’s ripped out of a body were ones from animals and creatures lacking sentience. the situation is unfamiliar, perhaps, but blood and gore often reads the same. that’s the only point.

he takes the scalpel, holding it delicately while it’s still buried in jion’s chest. ]

I had a weak heart when I was younger.

[ there’s a lot to unpack in that story, but he’s going to elaborate at his own pace as he carefully slices open jion’s skin. because it’s a clean cut, for now at least, there’s surprisingly little blood. ]

The doctors always told me not to get too excited.

[ That's, like, ironic or something, right? That Dextera had a weak heart, and now he eats hearts? Thankfully Jion isn't so tactless as to say that out loud, instead giving a thoughtful nod about the second part. ]

That sounds hard. I mean, getting excited isn't really something you can control, so being told you're not allowed to ... Must've been especially rough if something nice ever happened, huh? Trying to stay calm when you want to be happy?

[ He starts to give an awkward laugh, but the noise peters off into a sharp inhale as the scalpel travels downward. Jion squints nervously, hands clasped to white-knuckled fists for a moment before he tries to calm himself. ]

-- sorry, it's not like it hurts too much or anything. It's just been a while since somebody else did it. Don't worry about me, you can go ahead. I'm fine.

[ there are a lot of things dextera could say to, about, that. he could dump his whole life story on jion now that he remembers it in its entirety, but that seems like a cruel thing to do when he’s already in the process of literally ripping out jion’s beating hearts.

so, he takes the inhale as a way to switch topics, and then pushes his fingers into the wound. opening the chest, since he thinks this is how it’s done. the nice part is that the hearts don’t actually need to come out in tact, but he should be careful not to actually accidentally kill jion either. before he digs too deep or makes the wound too big, he pauses, his fingertips now soaked in blood. ]

…like this?

[ Make someone cry. It would be so easy to complete this one with Akira, but Ryo doesn't want to make his best friend and most important person cry. So that leaves him with...Dextera? He gets emotional easily.

He did say he was going to be more considerate of his feelings, which is what gives him pause, at least until he rationalizes that it should be fine as long as he explains afterward that it's for the quest and that he tricked him. ]

Dextera, can you come over? It's about the formula.

[ it’s an odd matter to receive a message about, but dextera doesn’t dwell on it for too long. the fact is, if he ever reunites with guren, whether it’s here or in one of their own worlds, the formula is still a necessity of a kind. ]

I’ll be right there.

[ it could be anything, so he hurries. ]

[ Ryo almost feels regret once the message has been sent. But only almost. After grabbing some papers from his desk drawer, he heads downstairs to light a fire in the living room fireplace and watches the flames encircle the logs until he hears the sound of someone knocking on the door.

He goes to answer, inclining his head in greeting. His grip on the papers tighten somewhat, and Dextera may catch a glimpse of Ryo's handwriting on them. ]

Come in.

[ dextera manages to get a glance off the papers, and it’s only on the second look that he remembers how strange it is that he’s just got them out. ryo took a lot of notes, and he was careful about never letting dextera—or guren, of course—see the formula. a part of dextera wonders, then, if ryo is finally willing to share the instructions. ]

…

[ ryo has been nicer to him lately. dextera can acknowledge that. so it’s with somewhat less trepidation than he came here in the first place that he enters ryo’s home. ]

What did you want to talk about? Is everything okay?

Everything is fine. I've just been thinking recently, if I really should be keeping this to myself.

[ Not entirely untrue; since Guren left, it's been crossing his mind every once in a while. While there's nothing in it for him to share the formula, he's aware that it would make Dextera happy and maybe he should do something nice for him. ]

Ah…

[ it’s a little late for that, but dextera doesn’t hold it against him as much as he used to. now that both guren and yuu are gone, there’s no immediate use for it. so maybe this is a belated, but nonetheless pleasant, change of heart for ryo. ]

It’d be nice… to see it.

Let's sit down and look through these. I use a lot of shorthand that may not make sense to other people, so I'm going to have to explain some things.

[ He says, moving to close the door behind them before heading into the living room. The small but adequate fire crackles in the fireplace, warming the room against the chilly spring day outside. ]

[ this is nice.

it’s all so strange and yet so very nice, having ryo offer to walk him through such a closely guarded secret, with the fire crackling in the background. dextera’s heart is laid bare, currently, and it’s just about visible on his face that he’s distantly considering how far his friendship with ryo has come.

maybe it was okay to help him bring akira back, after all. maybe this is ryo’s way of repaying it. ]

That’s okay. I have time.

[ Seeing that look on Dextera's face makes Ryo reconsider all this, if only for a moment. Maybe he should have done something else to bring out the waterworks instead of getting his hopes up only to crush them.

Ugh. He should get this over and done with. So he pushes that feeling down, smothering it. When Dextera sits down, Ryo simply stands there for a moment, not moving to sit next next to him—and then he abruptly crumples the papers into a ball, tossing it into the flames. ]

—?

[ at first, he doesn’t realize what’s actually happened. he just watches the papers get tossed into the fire, and before he realizes it, the flames are licking at the edges and dextera is forced to bear witness to the strange, only semi-colored consumption of paper into soot and ash. ]

[ and then he realizes that ryo must have planned for precisely this.

drawing dextera here with the promise of sharing that formula—maybe it wasn’t about the formula at all. it was just some sensitive spot in dextera’s heart, something that ryo knew he could needle at, and dextera doesn’t know why he would even attempt to do it. the quests aren’t on his mind, at this juncture. it just seems unnaturally cruel, and no amount of reminding himself that ryo isn’t always in control of his impulses takes that sting away. ]

…

[ he starts to reach out to rescue the papers, but there’s no point in that. maybe they weren’t even the real ones. his voice is quiet. ]

Was that all you wanted?

[ Something very heavy weighs down in the pit of his stomach as he watches the papers burn, consumed by hot flames. There's a tension around his jaw that wasn't there before and he curls a hand into a fist, nails digging into his skin. This was... thoughtless and stupid.

Silence hangs in the air for a beat or two too long before he replies. ]

...Yes. [ Quietly, as he waits for the tears to come. ]

[ dextera doesn’t feel anything, not right away. his body needs time to process the plethora of emotions that he could feel, and ryo gets what he wanted anyway—tears, helplessly dripping from dextera’s eyes, reflecting the light of the flames. they aren’t sad, nor are they angry. they’re simply reactionary, something pushed out of him that he hasn’t felt in a while.

he rubs his sleeve across his face, quickly, and stands. ]

Okay. Then I’ll leave.

[ before he gets angry. that’s what’s lurking just out of reach, and he’s afraid of it. ]

[ ...He doesn't like this. He thought the quest would be easy—he's never particularly cared if he made someone cry. With Akira, it had always been an inevitability. He didn't go out of his way to make him cry and when it happened he'd sigh and gently wipe away his tears, but he wouldn't feel terrible about it, because Akira crying is just another day ending in Y. ]

I needed you to cry to complete the quest. [ It's blunt, but that usual indifference isn't quite there. ] That was just an early version of the formula.

[ it was a trick.

that hurts worse, somehow, than the actions in the first place. to be deceived not once, but twice, and of course dextera can hear it in ryo’s voice that he’s not as cold as he could be about it, but it’s just not enough. it’s not quite there. ryo can recognize he did something wrong, but not enough to stop himself from doing it in the first place?

the muscles in dextera’s hands and wrists tense, his fingers curling into loose fists. ]

It’s done.

[ dextera turns around to face ryo, his cheeks damp and eyes just slightly red. ]

I want to go home.

[ Were this Akira crying, he'd just do what he always does, but he's... kind of at a loss here. What is he supposed to say? ]

Then stop crying and go home, Dextera.

[ nailed it. ]

You…

[ there are so many things he could say. it’s not the first time that ryo has made him angry, after all, and much of it feels like going back over all the arguments that dextera has backed down from before they got physical. he takes a deep, shuddering breath. ]

…you wanted to fulfill a quest. That’s what you said. Isn’t it?

Of course.

[ He gives Dextera a look, wondering where he's going with this. ]

[ just once, he thinks, will be enough.

it’ll be cathartic to do it, after coming so close so many times, and he thinks he can well and truly forgive ryo for all the heartless, thoughtless things he’s done over the course of their friendship. now that the quests are on his mind, he recalls the wording of the recent ones well. a “close friend.”

now seems as good a time as any. ]

…

[ dextera keeps his purification out of it, but a punch is still a punch, and it’s something he’s honed well. so he pulls back, and aims a hit right for ryo’s smug face. ]

[ ...He should have seen this one coming, huh. He makes a pained noise when Dextera's fist connects with his face, the force sending him staggering backwards against the wall, stopping him from falling flat on his ass.

A trickle of blood is running from his nose. Achievement unlocked: Punch Satan! ]

Ngh.

[ dextera exhales.

his fist hurts, of course, but shaking it out seems to disperse the pain somewhat. his adrenaline, too, makes him forget the contact of what’s practically bone-on-bone—he hadn’t intended to make ryo bleed, but maybe that was inevitable with the force. ]

…

[ there’s nothing else, really, for him to say. a few more tears trickle from his eyes, and he turns on his heel. ]

I’m going home.

I deserved that one. [ He winces, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand before it gets the chance to drop onto the floor or on his white shirt.

Then he lowers his hand, watching the other turn to leave. ]

...Bye, Dextera. [ There's an undercurrent of what sounds like regret to his voice. ]

[ CATCH-ALL ] mixing memory and desire.

QUEST 55 WITH SINISTRA

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QUEST 54 WITH JION

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1/2

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