logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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[ It's not the final day but it's close. There's no way of knowing if there's an end to this - Robin had called it an event, but Riku is so used to associating hallucinations and dreaming while awake with his past experience, young and wandering lost in the Realm of Darkness.

What if this was inevitable? What if this is why resets happen, progress coming to a grinding halt while everyone is losing their minds, hearts cracking beneath the crushing weight of their own misery and despair.

The temperature cools off more and more by the day and with his own former residence lying in shambles on the beach, Riku has at last resigned himself to taking up a sofa in the Invincible. His sleep is broken because he hears footsteps in the hall and it's years growing up with Sora and Kairi that makes him so ready to identify their characteristic pace, or feels a palm spread over the crown of his skull. He jerks awake, his skin pebbles all over and crawls every time.

It means he's hungrier for the lack of sleep, way beyond the constant and lowkey gnawing of his empty gut; he has to dip into the rations Gordon gave out and Riku does with great reluctance, screwing the cap on his thermos tight to trap the leftover stew he made of some vegetables, some cubed mystery meat, and rice.

Which is why he sees him, when he meant to go stand out by the bonfire and soak in some of its heat and light.

Riku doesn't see Quentin, not at first. He sees instead a forest spirit, something cloaked in withered leaves and bits of hanging moss, crowned in a twist of bristling branches choked with lichen.

He follows.

He's not sure why he follows. It's just some... tug in his chest. A whisper. Later he'll remember that he saw books left by the fire and tell himself that's what made him curious. Except that the spirit talks after a while, like he's daring someone to try something, and that's Quentin, that's his voice.

Riku realizes he's again put too much trust in his own eyes. ]

Quentin. That's you?

Uh-

[A choked off, strangled sound because the hands tighten, cutting off his air and Quentin goes all the way up on his tip-toes to follow them, to ease the pressure on his throat a little and when he hands, finally, finally fall away with a gentle stroke down his arm, Quentin drops like a puppet with its strings cut. Sags on the ground on his knees until he can catch his breath, until he dares open his eyes to look for the voice. The other voice, the one that doesn't sound like someone he's left behind on purpose or failed to save in just the right way.

He gets up, hands on his knees as he forces himself up and around, and he looks at Riku with tired eyes, the skin on his face feeling stretched too thin across his skull.

There's a flicker of blue light under Riku's skin, flashing lightning-quick across his cheek and it's gone before Quentin has a chance to mention it. Like it's been for days now, it's always too quick, too easily dismissed as a figment of his imagination. Because his brain breaks sometimes, and maybe this is one of those times? Where he can't trust anything he sees, because it's a lie. Again.

With more effort than he'd want to admit to, Quentin stumbles over to where Riku is standing, one hand curled inside his pocket and the other is rubbing at his neck.]

I-- yeah? It's me. I was just, uh-- I -- did you see someone? I think I saw someone? I wasn't-- alone?

[Words were a thing that he knew once, right? Like, proper words and whole sentences and sometimes even a proper question. It all seems so far away now, like something is moving his mouth for him. He tries to ignore the brush of fingers down his chest and focuses on Riku. Who helped.]

What--? Are you okay? Do you need anything?

[ Quentin drops and Riku starts forward with this, this sound, like a soft cough of alarm. There could be a pragmatic excuse - like how drawing attention to themselves could bring less benevolent spirits near - but Riku's not really given to raising his voice unless he's angry or desperate.

He stops just short of reaching for him, as Quentin begins to pull himself upright. Riku sees... cracks. Like on the bark of old and withered trees, lying over where his face should be, with two great pits hollowed out for his eyes. A spirit's mask.

Do you still trust your eyes?
A voice that makes his blood freeze, lurking in the sudden and lurching gallop of his heart. Riku's fingers curl into the gloved meat of his palm, just one hand. The other twitches, almost echoing the gesture, but the ache throbbing in his wrist reminds him to keep his fingers loose.

He shakes his head, answering both a voice the magician can't hear and the man's own question. Shutting his own eyes, Riku inhales slowly to gather himself, but at the flare of his nostrils he catches it: a deep and smothering Darkness, familiar, cloying, rolling off Quentin like heat off a fevered brow.

At last, you see.

He exhales in a brief and startled huff. This time, when Riku looks at Quentin, he sees him. ]

Me? [ Taken aback momentarily, his expression flattens out, edging a step closer. ] I-

[ Just as it may appear that Riku won't answer, he curtly admits: ]

Not really.

[ He lifts up one hand, because of the sound he had made when he first approached, his concern etching a crease between his silver eyebrows; his hand draws close to the underside of the other's chin but falls short of actual contact, staring at his throat. ]

It sounded like you were... choking. I saw no one else. [ His gaze shifts to the side a little. ] No one else actually here, anyway.

...Why are you all the way out here?

Edited 2019-10-19 13:05 (UTC)

I, uh--

[Quentin takes a quick step back, putting some space between them and between Riku's hand reaching out, clearing his throat and stuffing both of his hands in to his pockets as if that's going to take the attention away from his neck.]

I was just taking a walk? And I thought I saw-- I heard. But, uh, it's all a little confusing? Maybe I swallowed a bug? Yeah, uh, yeah I think that's it. I swallowed a bug and it... it flew down wrong?

[Lies, and his eyes slide off to the side, watching Alice beckon him with a curl of her small hand. Or at least he thinks it's Alice, since he can only make out the hand and nothing else in the darkness, but that's alright. He just has to follow her, right? Find out what she knows.

Or he doesn't, because she might just be something his mind has made up. Because of the stress and the dark and the fucking ferry going under and maybe, maybe, maybe it's just his ordinary brain breaking in the worst possible time.

Quentin's eyes flick back to Riku after a very long period of silence, and he's holding himself to still. So quiet, a neutral kind of apathy forced on to his face and he makes himself smile - wholly fake and terrified, heart pounding in fear and his hands are shaking too hard to hold on to anything, except inside his pockets where he can fist his hands in to the fabric and hold on rightly.]

It's just a walk? I just wanted to see the river?

[ His hand draws back as Quentin backs away. That could have been enough, a line drawn and Riku reminded to respect the distance, but the magician proves better at tutting than he is at lying. Riku would cross his arms if flexibility wasn't currently limited and he unwilling to expose his vulnerability.

That look of dissatisfaction and skepticism ebbs away the longer Quentin's attention drifts. He realizes, in those long moments that pass, that he's looking at something, nothing he himself can see, but he can see the tension drawn so taut in him he shakes. Can see that terror has seized his pupils.

He yet sees how the darkness in his heart is eating away at him, you can sense it. You can feel it.

Riku jerks his shoulder away from the sensation of gloved fingers settling there, masks the motion by turning so only one side faces Quentin. ]

The only ones visiting the river have a death wish. It's not safe when you're seeing things.

[ It's pointed, the observation Riku makes, and when he hears that voice again, he shuts his eyes with a small frown.

He welcomes it, did you not hear him? Soon he will fall into darkness. A fitting end for such a fool. ]

Shut up.

[ He exhales. ]

Not you. Sorry.

Not me what?

[The conversation is drifting away from him, like dandelion seeds in the wind, blown away with careless abandon or like they are talking about two different things, or talking to different people. It's hard, so hard, to keep his focus on Riku, the moonlight glinting off his hair like pale fire, the only light aside from their lanterns and Quentin's had been acting up lately. As if it's dimming or flicking more than it used to. Or maybe he's just too tired to remember how it used to look. It's a chore, taking so long just getting out of the cabin every day and food and showers have been lacking for the better part of three days now and today is not looking up either.

It's his brain, Quentin thinks hazily, voice almost dream-like and washed out with fatigue once he blinks away the hands brushing so carefully over Riku's arm, patting his hair and those hands will always too naked and too cruel without the rings on them.]

Of course I don't have a death wish? That's--that's crazy, and I'm not--

[Not yet, but I'm getting you there, Alice whispers soft as anything in his ear, and Quentin's breath hitches.]

I-- I have problems sometimes? It's been that way for years, but. Uh, I think-- I think maybe I should just go? Now?

[ He sounds so tired. Like he's been scared for so long he's forgotten what it's like to be anything else, wrung out from bracing for the worst too much, too often. Then Quentin tells him he has problems sometimes, like this isn't even anything new, that it's been that way for years and-

Riku thinks he understands a little bit better what lies behind some of his quirks.

There's a lot in his head, there's a lot he's tried to share with others, so he speaks in a rush like he might skip something if he doesn't get it all out, but there's a fear in him, too. So he stops himself, he backtracks, or starts over. Isn't he doing that right now? Saying too much, realizing he's said too much, and trying to retreat? ]

Quentin-

[ Pathetic.

Riku's eyes tighten, resentfully. He doesn't turn to look at the imposing figure he senses lingering on the periphery of his vision, he isn't real. He can't smell his Darkness. He's only an echo of the shadows in his own heart. But still he speaks, low and deep, dripping its dark poison into Riku's ear.

He but returns to his heart's true nature. Leave him to embrace his shadows. ]

I'm not leaving you alone.

[ He opens his hand, non-threateningly. Twice he begins to speak, but the way Riku's eyes keep making these small movements, searching Quentin's expression, the manner in which he carries himself, all suggests he's trying to measure what he says next. ]

You're seeing things. You're probably feeling them and hearing them, too. Shadows of the past.

It doesn't matter if I try telling you they aren't there because it feels real.

[ He places his palm over his own heart, the other hand moving at his side. There's something open about it, imploring. ]

How it all feels is exactly-

[ Riku drops to the floor like he's been struck unexpectedly, his breath puffing at the withered leaves and shriveled grass against his cheek. He doesn't seem hurt, just frustrated, making no effort to pry away the pressure he feels on his back and the curve of his skull. Knowing the hands aren't there doesn't help the fact that they're quite capable of knocking things and people around.

Still you shun his fate? Riku squeezes shut his eyes against the voice in his ear, lips peeling back from his gritted teeth. He's not there. He's not. Foolish boy, you cannot snatch back every heart teetering on the cusp of all-consuming darkness! ]

-ngh! You're not alone! Robin called this an event, which means it will pass. You don't have to deal with this by yourself!

[ The pressure evaporates at once, Riku shoves himself up by a forearm, looking up again through the veil of his fringe. ]

[Riku keeps talking but somewhere between the second and the fifth word, Quentin's concentration breaks and he looks away, towards the river and the gently rushing water. Someone built a bridge over it once.

And when he turns back, it doesn't look like Riku anymore, the hair honey-colored and the wire-framed glasses perched delicately on a slender nose, piercing blue eyes. Alice.

The words sound nothing like Alice's crisp vowels and cut-off sentences, however and he tries, tries to pay attention, just this fucking once, to the tone of voice and words, that it only feels real like that's some kind of revelation. Like Quentin hasn't done this before, had a break with reality and suffered for it, like he wasn't exactly the kind of asshole who'd kill himself in front of his girlfriend, and then be pathetically grateful that it's Eliot here with him and not her. And after that, after being just that much of a shit, he'd go around seeing Alice everywhere, like he shouldn't be getting down on his knees to thank the gods he never believed in that Eliot was willing to try, but instead he's just picturing Alice, powerful and brilliant, like he misses her.

This train of thought could go on for a long time, and had, previously. By the bonfire and yesterday, when he took the same stroll to the forest and the river, but this time, oh this time, Riku falls down and that snaps Quentin out of it, out of his own self-recriminations and in to the now.

He rushes over, falling down on his knees in the dead leaves and the wet grass to reach out to him, to help him get up or maybe make sure he's okay, whatever that means these days, when Riku looks up, eyes serious and burning behind the silver fringe of his hair and Quentin ends up with one hand outstretched.]

An event? What? I don't-- understand? What? Riku, what are you talking about?

[ Someone built a bridge over that river, and if you looked long enough at its deceptively gentle current you'll see something beautiful like galaxies swirling, or you'll hear cries and shouts for help as unseen drowned splash about and beg and plead for salvation. The spirits in the river are hungry and their lures are many.

Riku rubs a damp leaf from his cheekbone with the heel of his hand. It leaves a smudge. Much as he wants to shrug these hallucinations off, knowing they're hallucinations doesn't help when those same hallucinations can physically engage with him. He feels more than he means to.

The awful, buzzy feeling all over. The angry and urgent thudding of his heart. The hot-cold prickle of a cold sweat. Adrenaline surges in him and he's been doing that too much, too long. These hallucinations can't be real. Yet that giant dissonant note between what he feels and what he knows keeps punching enough holes in reality to make the walls between what's in and out of his head more porous.

Quentin suggested this isn't even new for him. He'd go so far as to say it might even be a little routine for the magician. But here he is, offering a hand, trying to help in spite of everything. In spite of all that darkness, the shadows that run so deep.

The brightest light always cast the darkest shadows. ]

What we're seeing, hearing- the hands? All of it. They're happening to everyone.

[ Or near enough to count. Riku finally takes the offered hand and uses it to sit up. ]

The lighthouse keeper, Robin, she said stuff like this can happen. Weird stuff. Like the monuments that popped up back when we first started coming here.

What?

[A little lost and a little hopeful, the breathless kind of exhale on his words and it's easier, somehow, to stay focused as long as Riku keeps holding his hand. Like it's something concrete to hold on to, something to keep his mind here and now and not linger too much on the whispered words in his ear or the fact that it looks like the monster has one hand wrapped delicately around Riku's throat.

He doesn't let go, even when Riku sits up, and now it's just this long, awkward hand-shake that he doesn't want to let go of, and probably should because Quentin generally doesn't like people getting too close. But in the dark, here, it's fine.

Riku looks-- off. His hair sticking to his face in clumps like he's sweating despite the cold, the too-fast breathing.]

You feel them, too? It's-- shit, I didn't want to say anything, because-- because sometimes this happens to me? I don't-- it's usually fine, it passes or. So. But you see them, too? She-- that's-- this is so fucked up. Why? Things are hard enough. But. This? It's-- are you sure it's not real? Or, just me? I saw-- I've been hearing. Things?

Yeah. Me too.

[ That concrete thing to root them right here? That's why Riku doesn't let go, either, his grip tight but not bruising for all that it could be.

There are rough callouses on his fingers. Put there from years spent wrapped around one weapon or another, and while it's not like Riku goes around clutching people's hands like they're a lifeline, he's a little surprised by the contrast. Quentin's someone who likes books, apparently enough to leave some stacked near the bonfire, as if he was making sure they'd find a good home without him.

Over Quentin's shoulders and head he can see him. His own monster, once, a heart consumed by darkness who stole his own body. He doesn't look directly, refusing to acknowledge this phantom, but he thinks he's sneering as he crosses his arms over his broad chest. Riku, making a point, shifts from sitting on his knees to hip to seat of his pants and that turns his back on that image, puts him a bit more at Quentin's side, instead.

Shifts the grip of his hand, too, makes it a little more like a clasp. His sidelong glance is apologetic for it, but all the while he's made this conscious effort to make his breathing even out, like someone bothered to teach him how. ]

She told me that it's sometimes their own work. Her and Rastus. Sometimes it's the spirits. Said she'd never do something like this and... I believe her. She didn't really get what was going on.

[ Exhaling, Riku pushes his other hand through his hair, gingerly. His wrist is still giving him trouble, but the sweat cooling on his brow is more uncomfortable by far in the growing chill. ]

The graves or whatever? When we first started showing up? That I could see as good intentions gone wrong.

This is something else.

[ He looks at Quentin and between one blink and another it looks like he's seeing him through a shattered pane of glass, it makes his eyes wince. ]

When did this start for you?

[Quentin shifts until he can sit down properly, still almost clinging to Riku's hand and he fold up with his legs folded up against his chest and his free arm wrapped around them. Sitting close enough to share the body heat they're both sorely missing since the temperature dropped again and it feels like he should be cold.

But there's nothing much coming through, only the heat from Riku's hand and the rough callus' scratching against the hairs on the back of his hand. Quentin has a book-lovers hands, only vaguely callused on the tips of his index- and forefinger, with dried ink on his knuckles and a paper-cut by his thumb. He doesn't feel that either.

It's dark.

Except for how there's still blue flashes of light coming from behind the tree-line, but Quentin looks away, keeps his eyes on his knees or on Riku's lantern. Something distracting and something real. At least he hopes it is. He could be sitting alone in a padded room somewhere, lost to the world around him, or worse, he could be sitting alone in the forest, holding hands with a ghost.]

This isn't just something else.

[He gets it out through clenched teeth, mouth working but the words just won't come. It's like they're all just crowding around inside of his mouth, caught behind his teeth. The explanation. That he terrified his dad for years and Julia for just as long, if not longer. She saw more of him, and knew when it was getting bad before anyone. Maybe that's why it hurts somewhere deep in his chest to think about her, to ignore her pleading voice. Because he'd done it enough when he was still alive and she ended up paying the price for it.

But he hurt them, by being how he is, by having a brain that breaks sometimes and when it does, there's nothing he can do. Not really. And this time, like the time with the Depression-key, there's no solace in sleep, no escape from the voices in his ear or the constant, churning guilt worming around in his gut.]

What part? That's, uh, that's a really vague question? When did it start for you?

[ Initially, Riku looks like he's at a loss for words. Under other circumstances, maybe that would've been funny (or aggravating), asking a question he can't or won't answer himself.

There's not much that could coerce Riku into changing his mind once it's set on something, and with a goal he'll march through hell to accomplish it. Talking about the really personal things has always been harder.

The King was more than a monarch, he was a close friend and confidant. He told him it would be easier with time to speak about the truly important things if he tried speaking about what was in his heart more frequently. They're worlds apart. Maybe he'll never see him again, but it doesn't mean the memory dies, too. ]

Before you guys. Before the lighthouse got connected to the network. Do you know that little shack down by the docks? I lived there with my friends. We grew up together, Sora, Kairi and I, at Destiny Islands.

One day we couldn't find Kairi. They said she drowned. All that time growing up by the water...

[ He shakes his head in disbelief. ]

Sora took it hardest. [ Exhaling in a puff, mirthlessly, he continues. ] Of course he did. He was always sweet on her.

I never got the chance to tell him-

...Lots of stuff. Guess what I mean is I've been seeing her on the beach ever since, but she's not really there.

[ The point he isn't connecting is that the hallucinations they're experiencing right now along with nearly everyone else... is actually pretty different from the experiences he and Quentin have had. But where does he draw the line? They're all hallucinations. These happening right now are just worse. ]

Thought I was going crazy. Well.

[ Leaning, he nudges against Quentin. ]

At least I got company. ...You said this isn't just something else. Is this about what you said before?

[ Like he's been through something like this previously? ]

And-- you lost Sora, too?

[Mentioned in past tense and with regret, Riku voices dropping lower and Quentin knows that. The soul destroying feeling of losing someone. The terrible what-if's that he can't shake, that still haunt him at night, even if he knows that Alice came back. That he turned the world upside down and inside out and completed quests for her, to get her back even if it meant she'd never forgive him for it. Because his selfish need to see her whole again was bigger than her wish to stay a Niffin.

He swallows thickly, talking quietly and leaning in to Riku for warmth and to feel something real that isn't the gentle fingers on the back of his neck or the disembodied hand he can see pushing at Riku, moving his head around to look at Quentin and the lanterns are reflected like fire and flames in his eyes.]

I was sixteen the first time it happened. I-- the world just lost color, you know? Like, everything was bland and colorless. I, uh, I stopped eating. Started sleeping a lot. And--and one night I was in the bathroom. I was brushing my teeth, and there was a knife. I just wanted it to stop? I wanted to feel something again. My dad found me and I was in the Midtown Mental Health Clinic for a month? They gave me meds, to make the world feel less fake? They worked a little.

[he clears his throat, keeping his eyes on the treeline. He can't see her, but Julia sounds like she talking from just beyond. Just past the river. He squeezes Riku hand.]

I've been in and out for years. Until-- until I found magic? I thought that knowing that my fucking fantasy dream was real would help? To know that I was special? But then. Uh, my best friend Julia? She wasn't allowed to go to magic school. But she learned magic anyway. She, uh, she used it to trap me in my own head. In a nightmare. She made me think that magic-- that everything, was just my brain breaking again. She's-- she's always been my only friend. Growing up? And I didn't help her with magic, even when I could. I just-- I laughed at her. I called her a sore loser. Told her that she just wasn't good enough, wasn't good like I was and she--

[Her voice so sweet in his ear, telling him not to worry about anything. That she's always be there for him, no matter what and Quentin closes his eyes to breathe deeply a few times.]

I lost my girlfriend? She died protecting everyone and I brought her back. She didn't like that very much, so. And--and there was a key? One of seven, to get magic back? It-- it showed me a version of myself. But. It didn't stop talking. About all the wrong things I've done. The mistakes I've made. Ever selfish thought, every-- shit. And then here, I've seen them here. I hear them. Feel them. For a week? Maybe more, but I didn't notice right away because--because it just seemed normal? I thought-- I thought I was just breaking again? Or--or maybe Julia's right. Maybe this place is just all in my head?

[ His expression is a complicated one, starting to answer and then deciding to get back to what happened to Sora later. It's not just because Riku feels like he needs time to collect his thoughts. He knows how difficult it can be to talk about the things that are closest to one's heart, the private things one might prefer to keep to himself.

It could be easy to push and make Quentin draw back, or to seem indifferent and discourage him in a totally different way. That he would want to bring Riku into his confidence could be considered an honor if they weren't both treating their clasped hands as a kind of life preserver in a storm.

I see. He was of the same age as you when you first embraced the Darkness. What insights into the heart could have been found had I but a foothold on his world, I wonder.

Riku disregards Ansem's phantom, something sharpening in his attention at mention of a knife, of wanting it to stop. ]

Your father cared about you very much.

[ Mirthless laughter sounds from somewhere behind him, he ignores that, too.

Magic - like it's something unique, was he from a world where magic wasn't known, the way it was on some worlds, like San Fransokyo, where technology and science could do things that were functionally the same to those from worlds that lacked those advancements? And nightmares, being trapped in one's own head... Quentin has loved and he's lost, he's felt betrayal and he's betrayed someone dear to him in turn.

He's been haunted by his own mistakes and regrets and inner demons. It's no wonder he's so wrung out by everything that's been happening. Quentin is exactly the kind of person who deserves a break and he's here, instead. ]

I wondered that myself.

[ His other palm covers over the part of Quentin's hand that isn't already wrapped by the other, eyes downcast. ]

When Kairi died, Sora took off. We set out in search of him, a few of us, but there was a terrible storm and we couldn't find him. Then there was all that business with the Lighthouse.

I spoke with Sora one last time. He was going to go away with the spirits, to try to find a way to bring Kairi back. A quest, you know? Like the hero he is.

[ He inhales and lets it out, slow. ]

But we were alone. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't... make that part up.

[ What other evidence, what other eye-witness account does he have to make sure that Sora had come back, that they had that conversation, that promise? No one saw them outside the Invincible by cover of perpetual night. He clings to it, because even if it's something his heart invented to hold all the broken pieces together, it's better than giving in to despair.

Hesitating, not because he doesn't want to, but because Riku so rarely initiates gestures like these for all that he needs these reassurances - he extracts one hand to put an arm around Quentin. ]

What you've been through, everything you told me, I'm not sure I know anyone who wouldn't break. But hearts are stronger and more adaptable than we know. We can get through this.

...Why don't we go back to town. Just to make sure we're not making up this whole talk.

[Riku's soft voice, the only one at the moment, wavering in the dark like he's sharing something precious. And isn't that all any of them have left now?

The stories of how it used to be? The people they used to be, in the world outside this dark, depressing place and the deeds, the heroics, the feats they used to be a part of. Quentin squeezes both of Riku's hands in his, head down on his folded knees.

The people they used to be, and this-- these last days, have been steadily erasing that. That line between who they were and who they are, at least for Quentin. This place is wearing him down, like trying to get a box of crackers through a sieve. The crumbs, the easy parts, goes right through. But the gritty, darker parts of him, the big pieces, they have to be ground down one crumb at a time. And he's losing it. Losing sight of who he is, underneath all the guilt.

But to lose someone? Like Riku did, lose someone you grew up with and all Quentin can relate to that, is through Julia. How it would feel to lose her to a place like this. Maybe. Or the fifty years spent with Eliot, and when Eliot died-- it felt like the world stopped breathing for a minute.

So he keeps quiet, listening to Riku and not Alice, hissing in his ear about what a failure he is, about how he needed lessons in even the simplest things and Julia, begging him to do the impossible and when the arm snakes around his shoulders, Quentin switch hands and wraps his own around Riku in turn.]

You knew him best, right? Because you grew up together. Even if it never happened, would it be something he'd want for you? To know that he's-- that he's still out there, still breathing even if it's not here? Maybe it doesn't matter. If it makes it better.

[Lapsing in to silence again, just breathing and ignoring the hands crawling over his skin, because the solid weight of Riku at his side and the dwindling warmth of his hand is keeping him grounded.]

How would that help? If we're making all of this up? I want to stay here.

[ That's exactly what it feels like, like the world stopped breathing for a minute. And then it moved on while Riku felt the same, a slow strangulation. Grief is a box he lives in, its insides lined with a thousand jagged little edges, right now he's huge with it, blundering around in a space that continuously cuts him.

They say it's supposed to get better. That it becomes smaller, so the times you bump up against the pain happens a little less and the spaces between those moments grows longer. They say nothing about complicated grief, and how everything Riku has let go of has only ever been done with great and often violent reluctance. ]

Something he'd want..?

[ Riku sounds a little like he's holding his breath as he thinks. It doesn't even take long. ]

Yeah. It is. Because he wouldn't want anyone to lose hope.

[ To give up. Not just because it would deprive him of a heart connected to his own, a tether he could follow back here, but because they're friends, and Sora - strong as he is all on his own - has always found strength in those particular numbers. ]

...Well, for one? It's cold.

[ The tension breaks as he shudders out a short laugh. He doesn't know how these guys handle it, the temperature starts to drop a little and he can't get over it, knowing it's only going to get colder. Why couldn't the fairies have given him a coat? ]

Even I'd go for a drink, but not alone.

Is it?

[Quentin stopped feeling hot or cold days ago, somewhere around the time that Julia's voice started to come from the drains around the cabin and Alice's hands reached for him from the walls, even when he wasn't doing anything more important than making tea he didn't even want.

And she's still there, at the edge of his vision, like blue fire and hissing insults. She never was kind, as a Niffin. And maybe that's the problem, that Quentin kept expecting her to be, even as a woman and she wasn't. Not the kind of kind that he needed and he was never as honest as she needed him to be.

Every step of the way, they kept hurting each other and still tried to fit all their jagged edges together.

There's nothing but razor sharp ones left, and Alice pushing him up against all of them now. Slicing his soul to ribbons and Julia's pleading isn't helping. Isn't doing anything but making Quentin want to jump in to the river and catch the pretty swirling lights in his hands.]

I didn't think there was anything left? To drink?

[As if the flashes of wanting fire in people's eyes could be ignored if only Quentin was drunk enough. The monster was never going to go away, it was going to keep following him, keep finding him until the end of time and after that-- there would be an eternity of nothing but the two of them.

He screws his eyes shut, mouth turned down in a hard line.

Maybe if he was drunk enough, he'd stop overthinking this and just go. Leave his lantern on the bank and just go, instead of beating around the bush, waiting for this to adjust. For this to be the new normal.]

Yeah, okay. Fine, that's-- yeah. That's fine.

[ Quentin hasn't felt hot or cold, but Riku's bare arms have been pebbling over with goosebumps regardless of whether the wind is blowing. He may have spent much of the last few years visiting a whole bunch of other worlds, but his blood is still an islander's. Too thin for the colder weather.

The cold and the dark reminds him of another place where time became a meaningless and fluid nothing term that slipped through one's increasingly numb fingers. Continuing to see and hear the same man who stole his body and brought ruin and suffering to so many worlds and hearts isn't helping.

If it's an "event", then it's temporary. He just hopes it ends soon. ]

Already? I keep forgetting how much everybody drinks.

[ But that's how Riku's been - any time there's a party, he allows himself no more than one drink. And, inevitably, he passes water around to those who have gone to excess, or escorts people back to their rooms. He's absolutely been that guy stoically holding someone's hair back for them. Riku doesn't get in the way of how others choose to celebrate, he just tends to try to mitigate the eventual damage when it goes too far.

Riku stares at Quentin, at the way he shuts his eyes tight, at the hard curve of his mouth.

He looks like he's hanging by a thread. Perhaps all Riku's managed to do is give them both a few more minutes. He could hope that might give Quentin - or someone better qualified than Riku - those crucial minutes to buy him another hour, maybe a day. However long until this thing, this event passes and things return to the new normal that's been living in perpetual night. ]

I'm asking a lot. [ To hang on when he's so wrung dry from years of this harrowing crap. ] It's hard to hope it'll get better when you're that short on proof it does.

[The darkness almost has a weight, like something slick and invasive pressing against his skin and against his mind. It’s not just the low, whispering voices, the disembodied hands or the flashes of spell-fire that Quentin can still see at the edge of his vision.

It’s the darkness itself, like it’s alive somehow, and it’s hungry.

Quentin still has one arm wrapped around Riku, and he has his fingers wrapped around Riku’s cold ones and every shiver that goes through the other man, echoes through him, too. Riku’s bare skin is ice cold under Quentin’s hand even if it barely registers.]

I think there’s a bottle of something that tastes like toothpaste in the general store? It— it really doesn’t taste like something you’d want in your mouth? But also, it hits like a slap in the face. If- we could, maybe, go get that?

[See if it’s possible to drown out Julia under a sickly sweet layer of alcohol and companionship, to drive Alice away when there’s only Quentin to yell at, and he gives Riku a tiny squeeze around the shoulder.]

That’s fine. I— it’s— I never really expected anything else. We can go? Now?

[Before the monster catches up, before his brain breaks wide open and spills everything out on the cold, hard ground. Before the hands catch them or worms themselves in to places they shouldn’t be.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

it will not last forever

Re: it will not last forever

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CW - smentions of suicide attempt, suicidal ideation, mentions of depression

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