maskormenacelogs | I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole

WHO: REGGIE MANTLE and YOU!
WHERE: Heropa, Nonah, Maurtia Falls... or anywhere!
WHEN: May 25th - 31st.
WHAT: After a year and a half, Reggie finally made his first trip home... and back again. Needless to say, a lot has changed.
WARNINGS: References to canon-typical death/violence/suicide ideation/zombies, possible mentions of underage drug use, drinking, self-harm, and/or sexual implications. Spoilers for Afterlife With Archie #9.

INTRODUCTION

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[ He has to be sedated when he first arrives; Reggie is manic and hysterical, yelling nonsense -- calling out for someone named Sabrina, asking where she went, if she'd heard him, that he'll do it -- grasping at the air and pulling his hair out, his mind refusing yet to make any of the connections required to remind him where he was. While they don't know what's wrong with him, why he's acting so out of his mind, in the Porter lab they're always prepared for almost anything. Reggie responds to the sedation, calming and collapsing to the floor, and not twenty minutes later he remembers where he is -- where he'd been -- as the dull reality of what must have happened hits him like a cold splash of water along with a year and half of displaced memories.

When he's finally "well" enough again he's given his papers and sent on his way, though Reggie doesn't know where to go. ]

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▸ HEROPA | NONAH | MAURTIA FALLS;
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[ Before, being away from home and everything wrong in Reggie's life gave him the opportunity to block it out as thoroughly and totally as possible, to try and shove all that guilt and shame so far down inside him that even he could forget it was there. He always thought it would be such a nightmare to go back to that, to have to keep fighting to survive all the while being unable to look any of his friends in the eye... and yes, in many ways it had still been its own sort of special hell, but it hadn't been what Reggie thought it would be. He's seen so much more now, more horrors to add to the long list of things Reggie must be indirectly responsible for, sure, but more than that he's seen the way this all could end. Maybe even happily.

Until he goes back, then, all he can do here is kill time; count the days off like an inmate in a cell, just the way everyone else who hates it here does... Reggie doesn't hate it, not really, but he finally understands what it's like to have something to go back for.

Nonah's an energetic, party kind of town, and Reggie's a party kind of guy -- well, he can be and he has been, and if he's killing time he might as well go back to his frat-boy roots -- which is what brings him to throwing down late afternoon in drinking games, cheering and chugging until his throat's sore and the front of his shirt is soaked with beer. At some point he spins around on his barstool and leers at some of his surrounding company, pointing: ]

[ Maybe Reggie knows them and maybe he doesn't; he's not paying super close attention, but rather focusing hard on balancing a jello shot on his head. ]

Dropping

I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole

NONAH ▸ BEER ME STRENGTH