maskormenacelogs | (no subject)

[ There's just not much point being dishonest with Minato, really. He won't bug you even if you aren't forthcoming. Even now he's been carefully assessing whether it seems like he can push Tetsuo in this conversation-- and so far it seems like he should. This listless apathy doesn't suit him, but he's not actively resisting the conversation, either, which is encouragement enough. ]

You can think about it, [ he suggests. ] I don't mind waiting while you decide.

[Time passes. Tetsuo shifts uncomfortably on the couch, finding anywhere to look at but Minato for most of the time. It's inevitable - he always gets tired of silence like this eventually. The push to do something, even when depression's overtaken the memory of what kept him going in the first place, eventually grows too strong.]

No one remembers if they leave, right? It's exactly like none of this ever happened. That's what everyone says.

[He pauses there, glancing back up to Minato.]

... Well, sometimes. Most of the time, yeah. Sometimes they come back and remember.

But not while they were gone.

[...he's going somewhere with this.]

That's true. They don't remember while they're home.

[ Minato can tell and is patiently waiting, tilting his head. ]

So, in that case...

[There's barely any warning before Tetsuo slams a fist against the couch. He hadn't even meant to get into this. He'd never meant to talk about any of this. It just kept continuing until he couldn't stop the growing inevitable outburst.]

What's the point?! It doesn't mean anything - no matter what any of us do! Does it?!

[Tetsuo stands up finally, turning to face Minato to continue his minor rant.]

See... it doesn't even matter!

[All that pain and suffering he went through, and all of them are probably gonna go through, and it's not for any purpose. That's what really makes it the hardest to accept. He died, and for what? But there's also one more thing, because this chain of issues, fears, anxieties and frustration never ends.]

If I found an answer to all that, if I could figure it out... I'd still be right back where I started!! Just having a goal... it isn't enough! I wouldn't be able to change anything at all like this! You see what I'm saying?!

[ His eyes widen briefly at this sudden motion and outpouring, but Minato quickly recovers.

And in fact, he nods readily. He's never really the type to display overt sympathy, but there's something even quieter than usual, more present, about him. ] I thought that, too, for most of this past year. I just wanted to make sure my friends were all right, but for myself... it seemed pointless to do anything.

[ A beat.

Then, slowly, ] The problem is... that means we think everything here is pointless. That's not really living. When I was affected by Pan's curse, I was like that... but worse. I didn't care about anything at all. The only logical conclusion of that mindset is to do nothing but defend yourself, like an animal that doesn't want to die...

But, Tetsuo...

[ And here he meets his eyes directly, something painful and knowing behind it-- because hope, after so many years without, is painful like a lanced wound. ]

I don't actually want to live that way. Even if what I do here only matters here, even if it will all go away eventually, it's what's right in front of me. If this is all I can have, then I want to have it. Don't you? I don't want to throw this away. Do you want to?

[Although Tetsuo's still too close to the issue to really get it, he catches enough of Minato's meaning. Even if it might take more time to really work that out... it's a perspective he hadn't even considered. Not really living described a lot of what he'd done and been, retroactively.

How many times had he gotten into fights? How many things had he taken down, or fought to a bitter standstill, or been lifted up by the neck, his powers useless, kicking feebly until that bastard was entertained enough to decide to grant mercy? And he'd never given up back then, always pacing forward, running to any option he saw, throwing aside anything in his path to wherever it was he was going.

'Like an animal that doesn't want to die'.

It'd seemed like he had a goal at the time, but it's hard to explain it now.]

I guess so. But... the thing is...

[But he can't make himself shut up. He ends up going on, stumbling over the words sometimes, finding it equally hard to say and not say. The result is halfway coherent, halfway just talking without an intended audience.]

I used to think... if I could get strong enough, if I won enough fights... maybe I wouldn't have to die back in Neo Tokyo. I failed that. Thought I got my answer that way. But now, that question... I can't take it anymore. Every day I'm here, I can't stop thinking about it.

[He rubs a hand across his face, letting it drop, listlessly.]

Kaneda told me I die. Then he says he doesn't know. Everything here, everything back there... I can't even tell what's real anymore. Like I'm losing my mind...

[ This sounds to Minato like something expunged, something that had been waiting to see the light of day and be exposed out in the air for some time.

Soft-voiced, ] Did I ever tell you that I see things no one else does? Not just the Dark Hour. Places, people... voices. It's easy to think you're losing your mind, with that. Maybe we are. But it doesn't really matter.

You just need something solid to hold onto. An anchor. So all you have to do... is reach out and touch it.

[Ever since he's said that, fear creeps deeper and deeper into his mind, his breathing growing heavier with each repetition. It's too much to say. He never should have admitted it...

But Minato understands; he includes himself alongside instantly. There's nothing implied wrong about what he's admitted. Despite not mentioning the kinds of things that he's seen, there's something a little familiar about Minato's confession.

He's equally soft when he replies, but his voice is strained and intense. His need for answers has stripped down his own sense of safety. This is what he doesn't dare to admit at all, pretty clearly; even the prospect of saying more scares him on a level too existential for him to even understand fully.

He pushes on anyway, but not because he wants to. By now, he couldn't stop if he tried. If he'd known this would be where this talk ended up before, he'd have never sat down. He might have never accepted Minato as anything at all. He'd have run as best as he could, not daring to say more out of fear it'd be more true.

There's a lot he can't admit. That he can feel himself dying, that he can't make it stop. That he doesn't know if it's ever going to be okay.

But somehow the worst question there is whether or not he's seeing all this dead on the street back in Neo Tokyo. None of it's real beyond one long dream he's never waking up from. Maybe dying in his dreams and visions means something worse than a short future.

And he can't know that either.]

I used something like that at first. A cat...

[Grim.]

But it's not just visions and stuff anymore.

[Tetsuo's stare feels like it could bore holes in the floor. He could just be daring Minato to call him insane here. And he's done his brain no favors past what those bastards did to it; the stuff he was on didn't help this. But he's been sober for months, and that feeling only grew worse for it.

Nothing makes sense anymore.]

If the one you have stops working, what then?

[ Minato doesn't react at all, much as he hadn't reacted to the Dark Hour for all those years, or more recently to the Velvet Room. Persona in general are not the sign of a healthy mind, much less one so fractured as it can hold 'endless possibilities'.

Indeed, this could be like any other conversation they've ever had, Minato unknowingly mimicking a therapist's unflappable poise during dramatic revelations. ]

Maybe you need a better one. I always use my friends. But what is it if it's not just visions?

It's this sense... I can't explain it!

[And it's no small amount of frustration, given his tone. It's a good thing that Minato doesn't react, treating this as if they were talking about anything else. All it would take is the smallest reaction to light a spark, and there's no buffer left to dampen the resulting explosion. Right now, he's not quite calm, but calm enough to keep talking.]

... Do you want to show me? Telepathically? I wouldn't mind.

[ As far as Minato's concerned, Tetsuo's already proven himself trustworthy in that sense, especially after doing it with Ken to no apparent ill effect. Something Minato is much more stringent about than his own mind. ]

...

[He looks down, then away completely, glaring at the wall. After a minute, he closes his eyes, visibly concentrating. It'll take less time than before; he's clearly gotten practice in, but there's enough time to give warning before he tries pressing his consciousness into Minato's mind. So, that'd be a yes.

What he's less practiced at is letting someone else in to what he's thinking, even to just feel something he does. It's always been unintentional before. In tried and true Tetsuo fashion, he didn't think that much through before trying it.]

[ Minato is a clear reflective pool of a mind. He has no more experience with telepathy than what he'd done with Tetsuo last time, but his absolute lack of worry makes him an easy target, no defenses raised whatsoever.

He's waiting patiently, as always. ]

[When Tetsuo's eyes snap open, he doesn't see the room around him.

He knows this mind, at least; and knowing what those monsters are on a deeper level than before helps make them a little less unnerving. But he still is wary, almost losing track of what he's there to do in favor of getting distracted by the sense that there's a lot of things here.

He'd forgotten just...how small he felt, here.

Right. I've gotta show you...

'Why' comes to mind, but he shrugs the question off. It doesn't matter as much. He set his mind to this, he'll.. figure out how.]

[ The whole crowd of Persona is as well-behaved as before, not so much as pacing restlessly. Minato doesn't have them caged or restrained in any way; they're a mute, neat line, first chairs in the orchestra, watching in perfect stillness. Sentinels.

Minato lets him adjust, having no idea what this whole experience is like from Tetsuo's end but suspecting it must be disorienting.

Yes. Show me? ]

[Unnerving. That's the best description for the uneasy twist in his gut. Nonetheless, Tetsuo concentrates on that feeling, trying to bring it to the forefront of his mind. Instinct screams at him, curling around fear into a steady mantra - 'no, don't, he'll see'...

But if Tetsuo backs down, he's a coward. Even if that's true, no one can know that, either... and somehow, it's a worse feeling than the terror of what he's doing.

Minato might take a while to recognize it if he's never felt the feeling before, but it'll grow in intensity until it acutely surrounds them both. Nothing feels quite real, like wandering through fog, not quite awake. Everything in here is just as real as everything outside is; every subsequent day merging into each other until it blends together like a lucid dream, where sometimes he can influence things.

Or...

Things just happen, and he watches. Sometimes he wills it. Sometimes, he doesn't. Sometimes, it's a waking nightmare he can't get out of, sometimes, it's a dream he genuinely doesn't want to wake up from. And underneath it all is a sense that he's already dead, and all of this is in his head. Or dying somewhere, lying on harsh pavement, listening to Kaneda as the world slips away... that'd explain why it always hurts.

Because time never progresses back home... and it does hurt, when it never did before that accident.

The only thing that absolutely feels real is the pain; it comes and goes, but it's a constant companion nonetheless. Somewhere, he knows it's there. But it doesn't usually come from an outside source, only enhancing this effect.

You feel it? That sense ... that's what I mean.

He's not sure if confirmation is worse, or better. Either easily confirms this bias.]

[ Oh, Minato recognizes it. He'd only spent ten years living in a fog much like this one, drifting from family to host family, from school to school, and finally from dorm to dorm when no one wanted to take him in any longer. Or the first couple months here, struggling to accept that he really was alive, a battle Minato had only resolutely won almost a year later.

Disassociation. The thought floats back to Tetsuo without Minato quite meaning for it to. I understand. And he does, with the sad, clear certainty of a low resonant bell.

He doesn't understand exactly why Tetsuo feels this way, but the feeling itself, its connection to death-- drifting through life because you're not sure it's really happening... Surely that's enough to be going on. But Minato doesn't have any easy answers for this. The only thing that had punctured through that for him was SEES, and Persona, and finding his team. He doesn't know how that could translate for Tetsuo.

You have to find something that's real. To you. Something important enough it makes you focus. It doesn't matter what it is.

Minato deliberately flashes a scene from Tartarus, a pressure behind it indicating he has hundreds of others like it: the sweeping dark architecture of the tower a backdrop to bizarre Shadows, Minato jumping forward to intervene between them and a downed team member. (Yukari? Ken? It shifts and shifts.) ]

[A life of psychoactive substances doesn't help anchor him, neither do hallucinations after the operation, or a power like he ended up with, where thought becomes reality. Nor the fact that in his dreams, awake or asleep, he's always falling apart or away. Death haunts him even when he's alive.

Tetsuo's never been the most mentally healthy. All that takes an eventual toll.

But he's not self aware enough to analyze any of that. All he really knows is how he is right now, shoving away anything that doesn't match to deny how bad it might be.

Still... There's a word for it?! He'd been so certain there couldn't be.

That's the problem. Aren't you listening? Nothing is!

If this wasn't through thoughts, the self delusion would stay just like that. But an image comes to mind anyway, of a messy-haired teenager all in red and orange with an infuriatingly cocky grin. Tetsuo hasn't pulled back enough to hide his subconscious. And therefore, his self delusions are undermined by his own instincts.

Consciously, he doesn't want to hear it; any answer scares him enough to block it. But the rest of his mind knows immediately - the only thing he knows he didn't make up has to be the person he knew from before.

The only one who ever truly matters.]

[ If Tetsuo hadn't thought of it himself, Minato was going to bring up Kaneda, anyway, so this just saves him the hassle. The drugs he has no experience with whatsoever, has no idea how to handle that-- but disassociation in general and the solution thereof, he has a better grasp on.

Human connection. Something meaningful.

And sure enough, he asks: What about Kaneda? He's never turned away from you... has he? Minato would be surprised if he had. It doesn't match his character.

Someone who feels that strongly about you-- that's not something we can make up. ]

[...

He did!

And there's memories alongside - Kaneda telling him to live his life, and stay out of his after a confusing argument when Tetsuo first got here. Shooting at him in a gas-hazed building. The showdown at the arcade. Trying to break his first bike here. Seeing Ken wearing the same jacket he's got on now through a furious lump in his throat... and Pan's voice whispering that Kaneda already found someone better than him. That he wasn't ever going to be good enough for, or loved by anyone but Pan.

Time and time again that the first things Kaneda said - there doesn't have to be a me vs you- sounded like nothing more than hollow, bitter lies.

But there's more - Kaneda holding him during a psychotic episode induced by the ninth hour of the seminar, threading fingers through his hair, whispering daijoubu until he came back to himself again. Pulling him back to awareness after a nightmare. Hugging him tightly, still coated in blood and grime accumulated from the Neverland jungle - 'I don't want anyone else! I just want my brother!!' Passing notes under his door in Nonah 05, complete with small narwhal drawings, giving him back the gun Rick gave him - Tetsuo reminding him he wouldn't need a bullet to attack anyone there, but promising he'd never turn it against Nonah 05.

Leaving him takeout for his birthday shortly after they had that first fight; his wrist is bare of the resonator that he got in September. Crouched anxiously over his twitching body on a street back in District 17, yelling at him to hang on as the world faded into pain...

Giving him that same bike he'd crashed.

A much younger Kaneda shoving a toy robot back to a crying Tetsuo alone on a playground, sniffing back blood. 'This is yours, right?'

There's so much more than the one narrative Tetsuo focuses on. It's easy to believe the most pessimistic answer, that he only cared again after Tetsuo died, but even Tetsuo's memories betray him. And this time, as they play out, he has nowhere to hide from them.

Kaneda didn't-

Give a shit. Give up on him. Care what was happening to him. Leave him.

Replace him.

There's too many endings to the sentence, in a branching path. Fears blend with reality until none of it makes sense.

I don't know!!

Minato's still right. He couldn't make this shit up.]

[ This is all a bit overwhelming, even for Minato. He has to retreat into his own mind further to watch this, so it's more like a video in full color and surround sound than something he's experiencing himself; but retreating is something Minato is good at, removing himself, distancing himself, so he manages it. His Persona steady him.

In the end it takes him a while to reply, sorting out all these tangled threads, trying to understand what Tetsuo, himself, doesn't.

What he ends up saying is:

Do you think it might be this complicated for Kaneda, too? I think... he cares a lot about you, but you've hurt him, too. Kaneda-san can't carry everything on his own. He needs your help. ]

[It doesn't matter how long it takes Minato; Tetsuo won't notice. There's too much for him to deal with, too. But it's his own head, and he can't escape it. The rage, the frustration, the need to be close, or validated... or loved. It's always been too intense.

But when Minato replies, all of those thoughts and conflicting memories and beliefs pause, giving way to one question. Kaneda never needed help. Even when he did.. he stood on his own. No matter how much Tetsuo had wanted anything from before to be equal, it... wasn't.

Minato couldn't have picked better words to get Tetsuo's attention, and keep it.

My help....? How?!

He can't help anything. He couldn't even save himself...]

[ Okay, so he seems to be going the right direction with this. Good, because Minato has no clue what he's doing, and is just moving forward by feel, like a man in total darkness might stretch out his hands and tentatively pick his way across a room.

But there's really only way this makes sense to him. His view is limited, he's aware. Minato is not that good at interpreting emotions, not his own, much less other people's. Yet he's gained some comprehension over the past year or two in a very narrow field-- and it just so happens that it is this one, of people platonically needing each other to function in a hostile, uncomprehending world. What he'd learned with SEES, and here.

You don't want to be alone... right? I'm sure neither does Kaneda. I don't know what I'd have done without Ken-kun here. I need... direction. Someone to focus on, to keep going.

He carefully pushes across a sense of being lost and desolate, almost bleak, just waiting until the time he can go back to death. What he's talking about is purpose.

Ken-kun and Jaime and everyone else saved me from that. Kaneda isn't like me, but he does need someone, to keep going forward with. And you're his most important person. ]