cultor | (open) almost died, ama.

(open) almost died, ama.

WHO: subaru & co.
WHAT: he's stuck on bedrest and itchy about it!
WHEN: post rat king fiasco, early week 3 into week 4
WHERE: his chelsea residence
WARNINGS: likely talk of suicidal ideation, death, gore, injury, rituals. guys being corny. seishirou is his own warning.

— EARLY WEEK 3.

ENERGY LEVEL: 1.

Post-Rat King. Stabilized and brought to his apartment following the resurrection ritual that's taken place in one of M42's secret rooms. Suffering runic backlash, blood loss, and a snapped convergence. Out like a light, susceptible to succumbence, not going anywhere. Tethers and magic weak. His unconscious body is basically a prop to look after or talk over until you want him a little bit alive for something.

ENERGY LEVEL: 2.

Ambiently awake and still not going anywhere. Pros: he can't get away from you! Cons: ...he can't get away from you? Can hold short conversations but tires out easily and is probably just incandescently soggy. A depression elemental subsumed by wounded animal swag.

— LATE WEEK 3, EARLY-TO-MID WEEK 4.

ENERGY LEVEL: 3.

More alert and awake for longer periods; can't get around much on his own but isn't really trying to. Will accept food & drinks but what he really wants is a smoke... it's not like his lungs exploded... i think

ENERGY LEVEL: 4.

Tethers and magic more stabilized. Likely attempting to hang out in his backyard for fresh (? ??) air. If not in his backyard, he's on his front porch's stairs conjuring up paper birds so he doesn't get too out of practice. Yes the birds are tiny and round and fat and useless again.

— LATE WEEK 4.

ENERGY LEVEL: 5.

He's actively trying to escape. Get him out of here, he wants to go on a walk.

— OOC NOTES/OTHER.

the above are just general vibes for customized starters! (aka guy who didn't die but wishes he had.) feel free to drop starters as discussed in here or let me know what week/state you want him in and i will write one for you. ❤ pm, plurk (elate), and discord (aoibhelle) all good.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[ subaru is going to escape, because soleum is also trying to dodge and escape too. something in manhattan has allowed them this rare freedom only at the expense of this scripted event.

a quick turn around a corner, and soleum will bump right into someone that he's already throwing out his arms to catch them before they fall over. whether his victim is still experiencing pain or trying their very best to refrain from it being seen: he's already bowing his head, and apologizing profusely in a soft voice. ]

Ah, I'm sorry! I'm sorry...

[ his hands shake as they release the other once he's made sure they won't fall over, it's an over-the-top show of concern, but soleum has to do what he's gotta do. that crimson, dotted gaze looks left and right from out those rounded-rimmed glasses and he's already grabbing the man's hand with a quick shuffle in the direction of a gate where an overgrown park exists. there's so much flora spread about, it almost looks so terrifying to go into, but it seems like the best place to go.

soleum has yet to raise his head to see who he's brought with him, but... ]

Um... Sorry, is there a certain way you were going... I think we could cut through here...

[ he doesn't want to say he's on the run and that he doesn't want to put a civilian in danger by having them questioned if that scenario arises. ]

Hello, Subaru --

[ Yuuto enters in a breezy manner. His mind is a mess from succumbrance and snapped back into shape, but only just. He takes a few steps before he locates a chair close to the bed to sit. ]

-- I am glad that you were saved. [ His head tilts. ] You're one of my dear coworkers, after all. [ His shoulders bounce as he laughs just a little. ] It seems like you don't need too much of my fussing, however. I'm happy that you have so many people worried about you.

[ Because it means a little less emotional labor from him. Not that he dislikes Subaru. Not at all. He likes him enough to have done something if he was in the right state of mind. That is saying a lot. But he thinks Subaru needs a less wishy-washy person.

Pausing, he pats his suit and produces a card that he acquired. ]

This is for you. Do you have the energy to open and read it?

( Not the time, not the place, not the season. Spring would have spilled around them with flush fever; Ueno’s ancestral theatricality would have gone wasted on youthful contempt for the inelegance of bare-boned sincerity. And he’s won, if he has her brother.

It’s winter, and everything’s slipped through his fingertips. There’s the exhilaration of things that watch and wait in the dimming of power. It itches under skin, gaze of curious predators, crepuscular. Spirits corner onmyouji with grief like beasts dragging their crippled limbs. You know it when you feel it. You know it when they scream.

Gasped breath licks three-forked chills on Seishirou’s back, and his coat’s dispelled, and his shirt’s clung, shivered across his pallor, and crisp geosmin blooms higher than nearby white birds calling. His shovel’s too heavy for Central Park’s stage, frozen, skittering churned dirt across cracked grounds, like powder ennobles oshiroi. He tastes the salt of his sweat, rolled in beads gelid; tastes snow, to come, and keeps digging.

And at his feet, small wooden box, red-wet and smeared, and above him the stumps of this great toothless maw, great-wide praying arms of Cherry Hill’s penitent sakura, and above them the damning, slate, chitinous nothingness of mid-morning-afternoon-twilight sky.

And beside him — the wind sobs once, quiet — the boy, who is a man, who is his the print of his fingers choking the universe. Who is him, made martyr, made base metal, made soft. Thin, dainty hands even for Sumeragi Subaru’s scale, and so often they crown an ofuda like twitching livewire; bloodless, now, but the bruise where Seishirou’s there-and-gone syringe intervention bought Subaru two hours’ sedated beauty sleep; to wake, ferried and drenched in three shades of blankets and crowding on the tree’s ancient roots, riotous.

Time and Western eccentricity erased braziers. In their absence, constellations of winking tea candles, breathing sly warmth with the lushness of a taken woman’s smile. There’s frost, Seishirou supposes, on Subaru’s lashes; smear of pearlescent pink on the back of his hands, where rouge has writ fresh over his lingering marks. Her colour, Chanel tube slapping frontiers on Subaru’s lap between memory and melancholy and fiction and cruelty, that which is cruel and never dies, and she did. Sumeragi Subaru’s hands felt right, and they looked wrong, and he looks wrong, and he might have died, also. And he’s her brother, isn’t he? Her brother, and he’s beautiful.

And the great wan sheets of cloud heave and shriek down their impossible, empty silence, and split to weep down petals of dulled snow, dancing lazy and low. Seishirou stops digging his (their) hole, only to quarantine his forehead, as snowflakes drip down between the cherry tree’s bald filigree of branches. And it tried for him, and he tried for Sumeragi Subaru, and he wipes his hands clean.

He speaks to Subaru, but only sees the tree. Second lives run too short. What difference might corrected myopia make? He has her brother — and she's won. )

Do you remember why sakura blossoms turn a pale red?

[ Megumi didn't make it to Subaru's bedside immediately. Things came up, as they do. He needed to make sure Julian was oriented and comfortable (inasmuch as anyone can be "comfortable" in Sleephattan) before he up and vanished, and having an actual doctor around has meant more to do with getting that space and the relevant supplies sorted out. He needed to get on the same page with Yuji (and really, the productive stuff was also just an excuse to stick near Yuji, because the impending threat of his best friend's unhappiness was the thing that had gotten him to stand up and try to live again in the first place).

And maybe, on some level, he's afraid of what he's going to see when he gets there. The trail of bodies Sukuna left in his (their) wake is still awfully fresh in his mind.

The one bright spot, he supposes, is that he wasn't responsible for this one.

He slips in when Subaru is still unconscious, finds himself a spot to sit in the corner, and stays put, knees hugged up to his chest and his chin resting on top of them. And waits.

And waits. ]

[ Stirring, suffusion. A thought not so much formed as it is revealed like bright, broken things are revealed on a shoreline when its tides recede: Are you there?

He hasn't awakened since being brought up from the underground and back to his apartment — not for any amount of time that matters. Cold days pierced by stuttering, hopeful light turn over, and over again, and he rests because he can do nothing else in the grasp of this strange dispassion. It must be... hurt, or something like it. Remorse, or something like it. Death, only ever a visitor on his doorstep, or... something like it. It may have been reversed, as he's found out, but its imprint remains a second, third hole mirrored onto his heart. Whatever flashes of consciousness surface are soft and shadowy as bruising and twice as unkind in light of it. But they do surface here and there, giving way to brief conduits through which raw feeling travels.

Those conduits are what remain of his tethers. Threads that don't let him succumb by himself, no matter what he wishes for. In the foremost tether he has now, his thoughts carry on in continuance for what touched upon him so bright and golden and strong before the world shuddered for him and went so dark and so weak and so wrong.

Subaru is alive.

His tether with Caelus tugs, more instinct than rationale: Are you? ]

[ They've always reflected each other, ever since they met. The ascender and the descender. The one who leads and the one who follows. The one who lifts his head up to the starry sky, and the other who lowers it to the falling petals. The radiance of sunlight and the calming glow of moonlight. One who wishes to move forward, one who wishes to fall backward.

One who wishes to live. One who wishes to die.

That fated night, Caelus tried to scream with all his spirit within this tether. Reached as far as he could and was successful in holding onto the vestiges of that fading heart. That voice told him not to look back. Told him to keep his eyes forward and fight. And so he did. Regardless of the searing pain that shot through his own heart, he stayed his ground and continued to fight. And waited. And waited. Waited…

Believed.

It's been a day since then. Still waiting. Waiting. Believing. The once-faded voice this time attempts to reach back, and Caelus's eyes lift high. Out through this lonely cityscape deprived of its former life, the trailblazer drops the piece of scrap metal he's holding, left to be forgotten as he rushes onward. He knows where to go. He knows who's calling him. ]

I am… As I always have!

[ An encouraging voice responds back, reassuring that weakened heart. He's alive, still fighting on as promised, living on because he still has much to accomplish. ]

[ In the moment Subaru half-collides with someone, he's certain that this is it. His brief taste of freedom is over. It's not as though there's a particularly high concentration of people here (though certainly more than before), what people are around are likely coming through to check on him, he's technically still on the mend, he'd all but hopped his backyard's fence to escape all the fuss unnoticed —

...but it's not resistance he's met with. Curiosity sparks in muted colors and Subaru easily, near gratefully, obliges the tug of his now-conspirator's hand. Even lagging a little behind, he peers forward curiously.

A third save? ]

No, there wasn't. All I was looking for was fresh air. [ Or as fresh as it gets in the apocalypse, but you know. ] Are you sure...

[ Into the intimidating floral brush they go, where most park trees are bare but twisted with strange, luminescent growth. ]

...you won't get into any trouble helping me again like this?

[ There's almost something more comforting about it: the breezy veneer of corporate affection. The same that says, "Please don't die, or else it creates more paperwork for me." Now, if he were in better shape? He might have something to say about the alarming ambience of succumbence he feels permeating the air around the other man. He's familiar by now, with its particular glint in the murmuring they all share. This wouldn't be his first taste of it, by his own measure or someone else's.

But as it is — stones, glass houses. Yuuto is already here, an instance that begs an similarly polite and raspy hello and thank you rather than his dismissal. He just doesn't have the heart. It's a miracle he's awake at all in the meager shade of expired painkillers and the people around him making sure his wounds are clean.

And that he's being wished well, apparently. ]

— ah, thank you. I can read it. [ Though he doesn't bother trying to pull himself much farther upright, instead extending a slow, pale hand for the card. ] ...Was this easy or difficult for you to find?

[ Is anyone receiving sympathy cards in the apocalypse? ]

There are bodies buried beneath the cherry trees...

[ An answer. Always, there is an answer.

It's winter, the season of his birth. Their birth, constellate twins. One hidden, one hunting, one overbright. It's winter and there is no pyre; the shovel-split ground, metal smacking and shearing against it, is made loamy only by the star nutrients of his near-death. Not even all those of his house know the day the universe manifested Sumeragi, a fluttering, amorphous, constant bloom of light in the leering shade of the tree he could not save. He scried the branches. The shadows. But he knows.

In this wash of pallid, unending twilight, there are still auspicious days in which the ghosts don't howl so loud.

Not even dreams hound the edge of his sedate darkness. He is not cold, but the heat is fleetingly strange — that of scratch marks, blood loss, the bark's bite more imagined than felt through the blankets and his convalescing fever. When he comes to, his tongue feels displaced in his mouth. Light declines to weave human shapes on the backs of his eyelids. He inhales once as if to test the limits of lungs shackled behind the disrepair of his ribs, finds it tastes like snow and candle wax going down. He swallows dryly. Briefly, his lashes shut tighter against his cheek; his eyes don't open.

No, he hadn't dreamed for those hours, prophecies in suspension, likely diverted to some other oracle. In its wake, words his grandmother never made him memorize. He'd found out later in life, maybe it was seventeen or twenty, nose to the ground like a chimeric bloodhound. ]

...just try imagining that, [ Lucidity only briefly claimed once remembered. ] each of these cherry trees, with its riotous mass of blossoms...

[ She kept it from him. By magic, by fire, by omission. Never so much as a glimpse. ]

...has a corpse buried beneath it.

[ The air stiffens with the lack of digging. Then sighs. ]

[ Patience is a virtue, but there's a cruelty native to waiting. Subaru would know.

Which is why, from beneath the cottony weight of a deep and unkind rest, he does finally stir in reaction to silence. It speaks louder than anyone might think, doesn't it? It weaves through their tether first, a soft touch made brittle by the way brushing so close to death nearly snapped the connection clean in two. A weak pulse marks the subtle wholeness of the tie between them, but his presence is still as stable as it's ever been.

Somehow. ]

You've been here a while, haven't you?

[ He asks when he knows, tone foggy. ]

[ There are no opposing forces this time. Exhaustion extends its reign, injury metes his silence. His will offers no conflagration, no winking starlight for the revolution of this particular sun to follow. Only the too-calm submergence of his soul resounds in what seems like relief as Caelus's answer floods over the tether. As if he'd simply bear drowning in it. That their tether still exists at all seems like something of a miracle; his misjudgment in the tunnels below had nearly torn every thread of connection he had apart.

It would have been... just, he thinks. To exact that punishment for his recklessness, for what happened. But when he thinks of the harm it's already done, the harm it would further cause to those chained to him by the gravitas of his will, he finds the logic thinning to grim translucency.

That's as far as his focus goes. What's done is done. Caelus is on the move, his belief crashing against a soft, feverish wall of static. ]

[ The caring relief, so delicate and kind, feels much like the gentlest touch of a passing breeze. It brushes through the strands of gray hair as Caelus runs forward. The direction that suits this trailblazer the most, indeed, is always to face forward. The pain he's experienced collectively in the past will always become a part of his newfound strength. This devastating event is among them now— a part of yesterday for the strength of the future. After all, it wasn't the first time, and won't be the last. His journeys will always be filled with such trials.

Perhaps it's this overwhelming strength, a shining spirit that refuses to kneel despite the sorrows, that caused the miracle… An unhesitating hand that catches someone falling just in time. Today, as Caelus takes his steps once again, he makes sure to stop whenever he feels the pieces of a broken heart. He may not physically see it, but the pulsing sensation lets him know. He reaches out to the invisible tether, softly running his fingers through it. He can't actually touch it, but it doesn't matter. He still does it to reassure the unconscious source. Once more, he reminds… truly, they're both alive.

Alive, and that means chances. Chances that can bloom into hope. Caelus has finished shedding tears already, and so… Right when he arrives at that familiar red door, a memory flashes through him of its meaning. Protection, vitality, luck. Maybe this is also part of that miracle. Maybe, someone out there, perhaps beyond the heavens… guided their connection, not allowing the loneliest person in the world to ever be alone. For a brief moment, the trailblazer offers a silent prayer of gratitude. To whoever that could be, thank you for their protection.

With that, Caelus reaches for the doorknob with one hand, as the other hand knocks just once. No one will hear it, but he still does it anyway. He enters the apartment silently, closing the door behind him as he heads upstairs. He follows the sensation of that lingering tether, eventually arriving right by that precious person's bedside. A person still trapped in slumber, loved by so many, yet he sadly doesn't know how to handle any of it. But… that's okay. Caelus believes that Subaru will learn over time— because he isn't alone, after all.

They're all here for him. A careful hand strokes across Subaru's forehead, setting aside his hair to allow his skin to breathe. And a soft smile follows. ]

Are you blaming yourself again?

Full marks. ( Top answer. Thorough, attentive and resolute, a poem learned on the master's knee. And to think he complained of the Sumeragi heir's lacklustre education. He allows himself that, a smile like weeds drifting down the river: there, and gone, and there again. ) Although by now, you must have realised the tree's role is largely symbolic.

( Modern sensibilities call for a visual prop; he considers it, the casual maelstrom of blood-spattered trinkets floating dark between pale ice slips. A postcard prospect, pretty snow and prettier petals, like a maiden's porcelain cheek bruised and flecked.

Subaru-kun isn't dignifying him with the rush of his gaze. All the better. Reduced to menial work, Seishirou concedes to the base practicalities of stretching both arms over his head, a bow taut. Of carefully, rigidly descending them to roll both sleeves up over his elbows. A proper working man, the rural vision. Bring him to the rice paddies, in Comme des Garçons contours and wafts of Emporio Armani. )

But we still hold a certain affection for the one in Ueno Park. It's a feral, rapacious and maudlin creature, but the Sakurazukamori is all it has.

( Possessive, yearning, chaotic, afraid. Reaching to the stars to carve out a friend in branches tarnished, and think of it, cloying viper's draw of its scent swinging loose like a grotesque infestation. Think of destruction crawling into its gravity pull.

Sparrows cross on high above him in a banal military plane formation. He laughs, helplessly charmed. )

Like a child, Subaru-kun. ( But don't you know — ) One you've nearly orphaned.

Excuse me...?

[ gentle words, and a slight confusion are mixed between his apology only for his head to turn and gaze to reach a familiar party. oh, that's what he did, this is what he's doing. into the thick flora where vines snap underfoot and in some way it's like the forest trembles from a decades long touch and have grown unfamiliar to the contact. branches snap, leaves quiver with a light, scratchy rustle as the wind blows through, and handfuls of snow drops down, one landing on kim soleum's shoulder like encouragement.

he doesn't really like that. ]

Um... [ a tremble, it's not like he can hide who he is here, can he? having already removed his mask from that one dream, and here he dons a pair of glasses to fit his disheveled look. he looks to him, there's a small battle waging war inside of soleum, one that goes: who is he meant to be?, and then his head dips down apologetic. ]

This... will be my first time helping you.

[ unable to be himself, unable to accept himself or maybe a third option that's keeping his identity separate from each other. "again", they both know, and soleum accepts that he's been read as roe deer. ]

First time help always comes without repercussions, don't you know...

[ into the waking forest, tree trunks look as though drawn eyes have been etched into them, or maybe that's a stylistic choice of the plant growth here. the crunch of snow, what little dappled sunlight breaks between the cracks of leaves marks their path that soleum is willing to take. ]

Unless... you need someone else here with you, sir...

[ a handful of snow drops down on subaru's shoulder, whether it's the forest's way of reprimending him, or reassuring his choice. it is a choice he can make, and who would know? they're the only two in this forest at the moment, ...probably. ]

[ Megumi lifts his head, an immense sense of relief surging through their connection as soon as Subaru speaks. ]

...yeah, I guess I have.

[ He hasn't been paying that much attention to the usual signs of time passing, the changing of light and shadows on the walls. Time still feels slippery and elusive to him, his sense of judgment still recovering from the impossibility of quantifying anything while Sukuna kept him submerged. ]

How do you feel?

[ agent choi has hardly left subaru's side since they first returned from the tunnels.

sure, maybe he'd been the one who'd died—he can't say he doesn't feel like he did either, every nerve in his body fights against him whenever he does try to leave the bedside, and perhaps worst of all is the absence of something. the ache of a phantom limb—where it should be, but isn't.

but even without that connection between them, he's sure that it must be worse for subaru. isn't it always more difficult being the one left behind?

so agent choi is perfectly content to stay put for the time being. maybe when his leg has patched itself up a little more, but for now, his ears, tail, and even those claws at the tips of his fingers have disappeared like little more than a lie. he isn't going anywhere at least for tonight, and that's fine with him.

because he needs subaru to know that he hasn't been left behind at all.

that's why, when subaru does stir, he'll find that the room he's resting in isn't empty. a chair has been pulled up just next to his bed, and on it—pushing himself slightly off the bedframe with one foot and carefully balancing on the two back legs of the chair, is a familiar face. a face that shouldn't be here, but against all odds, is.

there may not be any connection flowing between the two of them, but with even just the slightest shift coming from the bed, it'll be enough for choi's eyes to crack open. and, regardless of whether it's morning, noon, or night, the greeting subaru receives will be the same: ]

Ah. Good morning, sleepyhead~

[ And how sore it is to be alive again. Violence leaves its imprint in the clearing dust, the debris free for keen eyes and scrying: his tethers are still there, but they also suffer a level of mangling. What is gripped with intent to break doesn't flourish anew so easily. Even the caress of acknowledgment that runs across the line of this particular tether as it pulls closer is one that effloresces raw, as bruises do. Shadowy, tender, ugly — healing. Or capable of healing, in time. He's certain by now that it's no mistake that his attention has a body count. It hurts there too, even if hurt is something he's never declined to bear, no matter what shape his shoulders are in.

No matter what the weight of responsibility is like.

His senses stir, vulnerable. Prayer whispers bright across his front door before Caelus crosses it; how auspicious of him. Especially now that is home is unwarded, his magic in too much disrepair to pool in holy reservoirs of protection here or anywhere else he's left his mark.

Just another facet of the sudden shroud of quiet.

Up the stairs is where he still is, hovering somewhere between sleep and awareness. Even with his wounds, his body adjusts well to its pain, his years of training knowing instinctually how to suppress shock and signs of mortal injury.

Subaru's consciousness curls around the question as if Caelus had thrown a coin into a wishing well for him to find.

He is blaming himself. What happened is in no small part his fault. ]

[ They're eyes unlike any he's seen elsewhere, even here. An offering, he remembers. And exchange because they each witnessed something dangerous. But more than his eyes is the cadence with which his hands find him — pulling him through cerulean dream-grass and into a shattered cathedral, heaving him back out of blood and ink and miring flesh, dredging his soul up and pressing it back down into the ruin of his body when he didn't think he could really bear to keep it.

Saved, again. And again.

His acknowledgment, his read, his recognition... melts, like the snow slowly bleeding off his shoulder. There must be a reason his sense of safety splits like this. ]

No, I don't. If I accept any more repercussions right now, I'm sure there'd be more than a few people angry with me...

[ Underfoot, the growth shudders beneath the crust of snow. It's rare for him to find a reason to venture into the more wooded areas of the parks and the entire area seems to widen with their intrusion, like a giant being's breath filling the forested shape of its ribs. Snow plops, branches creak. The eyes of the trees peer listlessly. ]

But all I really came out here for was a walk.

[ Figures he'd get eyes. But it's fine. ]

If you don't mind.

[ Only because Subaru is in the trade that he is does he understand what a vigil looks like, even in silence. Some things are ingrained too wholly in his soul to mistake. It doesn't matter what time has passed, only that Megumi has spent it here by his side, when there was likely so much else to see to. New vessels, another fragment, more expertise, memory, and instances to catalogue.

Guilt surfaces, but the sensation is diffused by the thick layer of exhaustion laying against him like a shroud. ]

I'm alright. [ Practiced words. Those he's tethered to already know the price he paid in the tunnels. ] You didn't need to spend so long here worrying about me... but —

[ An unadorned truth, given the circumstances: ]

I'm glad you and Yuji are alright.

Then I'll accompany you for now, sir.

[ polite, a tilt of his head and finally he releases the other and allows him to move in any way that he likes. hunched shoulders and a hand comes to his face, the man scratches at his cheek in thought. there are repercussions if roe deer were here, something along the line of... haven't they been through enough, and he would be responsible to guide him back.

as agent grapes, there's no need to commit to what roe deer has done, and will do in the future.

though, he can't help but think: why aren't you resting? or aren't you still in pain? eyes flicker to the side, that crimson center looks to the person next to him before returning his gaze forward.

the eyes watch, unblinking, and soleum exhales with a shaky breath as his breath turns white before him. it's so cold, it's freezing, and here they're making their way through a dense forest where every direction appears the same. never changing even with the crunch of branches or the shuffle of leaves, the snow remains attached to certain surfaces, and the intimidating fungal growth remains stands out as owners of their surroundings. their complete control over a wild forest, and these two enter like guests. ]

May I ask... where were you walking to?

[ a nervous voice accompanied by a worried expression, the hand that scratches his cheek comes to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. they never stay properly, sliding down occasionally, and when he looks down to make sure he doesn't trip over anything, he has to catch them from falling. ]

It'll give us an idea of what side to stay on.

You didn't have to, either.

[ ...though Subaru's presence probably did considerably more when Megumi was under than he has now that the tables are turned, he knows. But even if he doesn't have the expertise Subaru has in pulling people out of the mire of an emotional collapse, he can at least do this much.

Sitting in a room and waiting isn't much at all, but he certainly can't do nothing.

He gets up from the corner he's been huddled in (out of the way, where he and his lack of anything other than being a warm body in the room belong) and moves closer, sitting in the chair at Subaru's bedside. ]

...I think our group might've made it out with the least collateral damage of anyone, somehow. [ Truthfully, when the rat king showed up, there was a definite oh, shit, am I up for this yet somewhere in the back of his mind, but after everything, he couldn't leave Yuji to fight alone, and he certainly couldn't leave Yuji to rescue his brother alone. Not with the role he played (will play, from Yuji's perspective) in taking that brother away from him. ]

[ Where does Caelus even begin? There is… so much to say. Too many feelings, yet nothing can properly contain each of them, because it isn't merely Caelus's or Subaru's that are involved here. The broken hearts of all these tethers remind them of it. But one step at a time, surely, he'll be able to hold this onmyouji's hand through it all— as they make it forward together. Together, with everyone close by as well. All those who love him.

A resigned, saddened smile. Caelus doesn't hear it, but he feels Subaru's acknowledgment that he's correct. … Of course. Subaru's selfless personality is like that, after all. He'll always blame himself, no matter the situation. No matter how others feel about it, it's what he's decided for himself. But Caelus's faith is unshaken, because he knows… He knows well. Everyone will help Subaru realize that he doesn't have to take it all by himself. It won't just be the trailblazer's efforts alone that will heal this heart so full of solitude. ]

Subaru… You're human, so it's okay to experience being one.

[ Caelus is still learning about humans as a whole, but he understands this much: that humans need each other. Under normal circumstances, humans don't have wings to fly, but they can come so close to flying if they all support each other. It's a beautiful thing to witness. They don't have to take on everything all alone.

An encouraging smile soon replaces the earlier resignation. Once more, Caelus will continue his mission— to lead Subaru to realize his own happiness someday. With a single hand, he cups one of the onmyouji's cheeks, extending his warmth onto that unconscious body. He's here, always has been, just like he said. ]

Hold on, okay?

[ Standing back up straight, Caelus temporarily steps away to ready some things. ]

[ A child, orphaned by his lack of commitment to a body in between apocalypses, a soul peering long through twin interstices of birthright. One stolen by a harbinger with a holy sword, the other collected by the slithering fingers of another child searching for paradise. It's an impossible inversion of this coiling, kinetic line that awaits him.

He can imagine it: the long sobbing wail of an earthly infant bereft. He can imagine it: the crisp curl of Seishirou's dress shirt where its hems roll into the crooks of his elbow. If only he paid more attention then. He still thinks it, of moments accrued by nostalgia and hurt-blushed sensitivity whittled keen, coalesced to remember a man who didn't exist. A man resurrected like a ghost on the altar of his consequence.

An altar, candlelit, powdering white. His scars, tucked to his skin. Other accruals. ]

I've visited that tree. [ But it never called to him. Not like the last breath of a thousand murders had, syncopated. ] When I was looking for you.

[ His cheeks burn with static cold, mottling red. And his arms burn too; they bloom from beneath the swath of blankets, stretching sharp as he shifts against this tree, symbolism leering, scentless, bare. Its presence bows over him at Seishirou's behest.

Temple to tree trunk, hemmed by roots, his eyes shudder behind translucent lids and finally blink open. The gloss of sedation lingers. ]

Then, do you know? What I would have done to it?

[ In truth, he could have continued to stay sleeping for much longer. His rest is dark and dreamless, pain saturates his every contour. It flushes in ugly colors with the slow thud of his pulse. Proof, it says, glaring at him from the gaping wound where someone should be, but isn't. Proof that he is alive enough to see someone else die.

Even in penitence, it feels like hell.

But the natural weight of movement near him is just enough to break the surface tension. How much time has passed? Too much, or none at all? He accepts the possibility of having to answer to what's happened sooner rather than later, and he doesn't feign resting when he clearly can't. The skin beneath his eyes pearls grey when he opens them, staring a long moment at his ceiling as if to center himself. Then, it's before he even looks aside that he hears it —

Good morning.

His brows knit. Not what he expected. Gaze falling aside, his expression loosens to something more natural, clearly exhausted, but fighting for alertness. Even if just to trace Agent Choi's outline with a long look where he's kicked up so casually next to his bed.

In it there is — acceptance. But for what isn't so clear. ]

Do you know how often it is, [ he starts, starting to lift his arm from where it's crossed over his middle. ] that I see ghosts?

[ the chair's front legs drop onto the floor with an audible thud as agent choi lifts his legs, pulling them back so that he can sit up properly. lean in, even—his elbows sink into the surface of the old mattress, and subaru's weight may shift with the redistribution of it, but that smile he wears... it'd be hard not to see the relief in it. ]

Haha, I guess somebody else stole your spotlight this time around~

[ sorry, dante, but your efforts are much appreciated.

after all, it's only because of them that agent choi can reach forward to meet subaru's hand where it is—wrapping both of his around it. with that, subaru will feel it: warmth. the familiarity of hot blood flowing through his veins and a pulse that beats with a steady rhythm, even if there are a few new marks across those hands that weren't there before.

even just the touch of their skin is enough for the feeling of sparks to dance across the surface of his fingertips. a soothing warmth that's almost comforting, and his expression matches the temperature with a clear affection. if only it didn't look a little sad at the same time.

but he does, because after all: ]

Sorry, Subaru. I know I messed up.

[ he'd wanted the first thing subaru heard to be something a little lighter, but there's no doubt in his mind that this is just as important to say. ]

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(open) almost died, ama.

ENERGY LEVEL: 5.

ENERGY LEVEL: 2

keep your energy, we have sedatives.

2

— ᴄᴀᴇʟᴜs, ᴇᴀʀʟʏ ᴡᴇᴇᴋ 3.

cw: mention of suicidal ideation

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having a totally normal one, as they say

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tear countdown

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EL1

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