[ OPEN? CLOSED? ] as you die, you will understand.

[passio]

WHO: dextera + others! i’m open to anyone but please tell me by PM or at pavaal if they haven’t had at least like, one conversation.

WHAT: dextera forces himself to face all the people he bailed on after dying.

WHERE: the town!

WHEN: forward dated to late june, and probably the 1st and 2nd of july.

WARNINGS: death death death

[ for the first time, dextera wakes up from death to a sky that isn’t red. it’s all as grey as the world around him, and slowly, the memories return to him—the bogeyman, his brother, the feeling of his very soul being taken from his body. then, there’s a long expanse of nothing. now, his consciousness has returned.

he keeps out of the way at first in this sketchy body, staying private, staying safe with a friend he’s sure won’t tell—there are things he’s not ready to talk about, and faces he’s not ready to see. after a few days have passed, though, and his features reform, color returns, and his voice continues to stay just out of reach, he can finally be seen around town again.

he saw the post. he knows guren announced his death. he’s just hoping that no one will ask about it, if they see him. ]

...

[ as ever, he's silent. ]


( i'll be posting closed prompts in the comments for people who want them, otherwise... go HOG WILD. )

Comments

[dualtone]

[ Fushimi nearly (nearly) drops his coffee cup, when he sees Dextera. It's a near thing, but instead he just sloshes a little out of the side in surprise, and then completely ignores it, not even bothering to try and stop it from soaking into the edge of his sleeve. ]

-- Hey!

[ Fushimi doesn't usually get that involved in the affairs of other people, but he liked Dextera, from the time they spent together, as much as Fushimi ever likes anyone. More importantly, Dextera meant a lot to Guren, and Fushimi was right there watching Guren deal with the after effects of the fight, the loss.

It's really a toss up whether he's more worried about Dextera or Guren, at this juncture, but he feels something like relief that Dextera is -- alive? Back? Healed?

Ugh, that's gross, he doesn't want to be attached enough to people to feel relief. ]

You're --

[ He cuts off when he steps over to Dextera, not quite wanting to say 'not dead' or 'okay'... in his defense, the last time he had to deal with someone coming back from the dead, he cared substantially less about their well being. ]

[passio]

—!

[ dextera jumps slightly, when there’s suddenly the sharp sound of a voice that’s definitely directed toward him. his first instinct is that he’s in trouble, even though no one has gotten mad at him for any reason in a long while now—and most of the reactions he’s faced, since coming back from the dead, have been a surprising sense of relief.

he’s not entirely sure that he’s going to get relief from fushimi, but the surprise is there, at least. surprise that fushimi would bother to say anything, but then, he lives with guren (or at least, lives with yata who lives with guren) and he must have seen the way guren has been dealing with the aftermath of it all.

so, unsure of what else he can do until he knows what emotion fushimi is feeling, he nods. ]

[dualtone]

[ A little bit of tension eases out of Fushimi's shoulders, because Fushimi is, at his core, a creature of habit who craves the soothing embrace of monotony. He wants to wake up and complain about his job and go home and be fed food by Yata while complaining about it and then play video games until he sleeps, but since most of that isn't available, he'll settle for the scraps of a schedule and reliability he can manage.

Which involves people not dying. Dying throws a huge wrench into the "normal" part of his daily life, way more so than most of the weird things that happen. ]

... Good. [ Fushimi looks away, a little awkwardly -- this is too much emotion for him to deal with, really, but. ]

Does Guren know?

[passio]

[ that clarifies things somewhat, for dextera. fushimi was worried about him… which is more flattering than dextera can articulate even in his own mind, because he cares for fushimi quite a bit in his own careful, thoughtful way. he just never expected anything like it to be returned.

and yet, that question—“does guren know?”—means that fushimi has paid attention to things. he’s observed what’s going on around him with at least some kind of attention, and, well…

yes. guren does know. dextera also glances away, awkward, because his face is warming with the memory of their reunion. ]

…

[ again, without making eye contact, he nods. ]

[dualtone]

[ Fushimi looks back at Dextera, and catches sight of that blush and promptly flusters himself, just a little, because he didn't think --

Well. He isn't going to jump to any assumptions, but whatever is making Dextera flush like that is probably more than Fushimi wants to know in the absolute slightest. ]

Good. I was -- [ Fushimi hesitates, for a second, and there's something on his face that's a little like a struggle. He's not used to carrying conversations or talking about feelings or any of it, any of it at all, but it's all so necessary these days... ]

... worried, I guess. When Misaki was stone, I knew he would come back, but I wasn't sure...

[ ...if people who died would; if everything would be "okay" again. ]

[passio]

[ there are so many people here who are bad at feelings, and dextera would have counted himself among them before meeting them all. now, though, watching fushimi struggle to articulate that he was worried—

dextera knows he’s trying, and he really is truly grateful for the sentiment. guren had fushimi pegged long ago, when he first assigned them as teacher and student. fushimi is a good person at heart, there are just so many things in the way of expressing that. ]

I didn’t know either.

[ he’ll admit that right now—of course there was no way guren could have known, in such a case. ]

[dualtone]

[ Fushimi lets out a breath, slowly, trying to sort out what he wants to say. His kneejerk reaction is still to run from anything that's the slightest bit emotional, but he's been getting better and better at it. Practice makes slightly less terrified of emotions, he supposes, even if Dextera dying was a very real -- well, that's exactly why you shouldn't get close to people, isn't it...? They die, or replace you, or betray you.

But Dextera is back and there has been shockingly little in the way of betrayal or replacements in Fushimi's life, lately. ]

Were there any consequences? Or were you just -- back?

[ Fushimi needs to know just on the basis of if someone else dies, how worried should he be. ]

[passio]

[ normally, dextera just comes back. all his belongings get left behind, but that’s a natural consequence of having his corpse picked up and hauled off by a machine whose only purpose is to do just that. instead, here, there actually was a process, and it would be unwise to keep it all to himself. ]

Wrong, at first.

[ it’s hard to describe it, when it feels like dextera was lost in his own body for those first few days. ]

Blank. [ he gestures to himself, and then he finds the word that he thinks best describes it. ] Like a sketch.

[dualtone]

[ Fushimi nods, but it's an automatic gesture to indicate that he understands more than anything else. That sounds... as horrifying as anything else this place could come up with, and he wonders, with a tight clench of his stomach, if any of them are even real. Are they who they think they are, or are they just -- sketched out copies in some sort of fairy tale come to life?

Coming back from the dead shouldn't happen so easily, and Fushimi has mixed feelings about it, but --

Well, even if nothing is real, it still feels real enough that he's relieved death is just a nasty debuff for awhile. ]

...If it's only temporary, that's surprisingly generous. Be careful that there aren't any...

[ Nastier debuffs lurking behind the corner? It isn't like they can lose experience. ]

Well, just -- let us know if you have any other problems.

[ It's like an offer of help!! ]

[passio]

[ dextera understands what he means, at any rate. he hasn’t run into anything especially bad, since his body properly reformed, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t psychological effects—not to mention the color changes, that seem to happen around the same time on a cycle. if kindness restores color, then dying will surely bleed it out.

he just hopes that the tulips in the front of his house are unharmed. ]

Fushimi.

[ and the name fushimi has been given in dextera’s sign language is as thus: the symbol for an “F,” then held to his lips to match the sign for “coffee.” it feels appropriate. ]

Thank you. For worrying.

[dualtone]

...Is that the kind of thing you thank someone for?

[ Isn't worrying a bad thing, that should be avoided at all costs? Fushimi can't say he really understands feelings, or friendship, or anything like that -- but it's not like Dextera would lie about it, so instead it just comes around to the same fact: he's being thanked for something, and he has no idea how to deal with it.

What is positive reinforcement, who came up with that. It sounds terrible. ]

You're welcome, I guess.

[ And then, because Fushimi can't handle being too soft for more than like, forty-five seconds at once -- ]

Just don't be stupid and let it happen again.

[passio]

Ah—

[ dextera doesn’t know. is it the kind of thing to thank someone for? it doesn’t feel right to blame him for worrying, anyway, since dextera’s the one at fault for dying, and he doesn’t want it to go unacknowledged either. he’s floundering, until fushimi reluctantly extends a you’re welcome and forces the conversation to move on.

dextera exhales. ]

I won’t. I promise.

[dualtone]

Good. [ If nothing else, Fushimi doesn't want to see Guren like that again. Even ignoring the blood that wound up all over his room and the sight of being able to see the walls through Guren's torso, like, Guren being that sad isn't something Fushimi wants to deal with if he doesn't have to. ]

...I should get going.

[ He only wanted to make sure that it was really Dextera, that he was okay, that he wasn't some sort of horrible zombie creature. He really wouldn't put it past this place to bring zombies out, especially after the werewolf thing. ]

If you come over sometime, Misaki'll cook for you.

[passio]

[ dextera is honestly grateful for it. even without that final comment, he knew that this was all fushimi trying to be kind—and hearing him voluntell yata to cook for dextera is also a form of kindness. he’s never seen them interact, actually, but he knows they’re close.

he should be a better friendship teacher… though it seems like fushimi is doing just fine. ]

…

[ he smiles, soft and filled with honest gratitude. ]

Thank you. I will.