lmao pretend i know what i'm doiiinnnggggg

[transcendent]

[ By now, Rubedo should know where to find Albedo if he looks. For the last several weeks he's slept like an angel, enfolded in a warm space built from their shared consciousness and memory. A night of rest outside can stretch out over days in here; the day Albedo finally stirs, his awareness stretches out in the background of Rubedo's senses all muzzy and creaking like he's been out for a year. But it's not enough to just hover there, sharing sight and sound and thought—it's perfect, important and precious, but right now it isn't enough.

As his (their) physical body migrates toward bed, Rubedo knows where to find him. He's waiting already; less anchored to the real world, he has the luxury of drifting between the varying phases of consciousness available to a person. Not long ago he drifted back into awareness and left behind the bed he conjured without meaning to: the broad, sterile white and gray affair he remembers from the Institute, but bigger, plusher, safer. There's been a nagging anxiety inside of him that he knows Rubedo can detect, even if he can't see him just yet. How will he choose to show up, he wonders? The way Albedo knew him in their youth? Or the form gifted to him by Nigredo? Can he sense this anticipation?

Will he feel all the things Albedo feels that he doesn't know how to name? Will he understand?

He's awake and standing in that semi-empty space, hood pooling around the nape of his neck, and when he sees Rubedo for the first time he doesn't actually say anything—he takes a few steps forward, gaze enigmatic but bright.

They've never just been in the same room. Not for years and years and years. Albedo was supposed to die at his hands, alone but free. Now he's almost close enough to touch. ]

Comments

[positron]

[When the bed makes an appearance - and Jr. could swear it hadn't been there just moments ago - it's easily recognizable. Regardless of how much time has passed, Jr. can't deny its striking familiarity. The structure, the smell, even a dent from an incident he remembers getting in trouble over. He wouldn't have thought that he remembered it that clearly.

And it's possible that he hadn't; Jr. has the sense that it's here because Albedo put it here. For what purpose, he's not as certain of...at least until hearing that comment. He hikes a brow at the words, shifting his weight slightly as he maintains some balance this his free arm]

You talking to yourself?

[The tenuous mirth is replaced by concern, his voice quiet. The question isn't really a question at all. It's difficult to sift through the feelings being relayed to him, confused and conflicted as they present themselves to be. Silence descends with the heaviness of winter snow, and to Jr. seems to linger on longer than it truly does]

...It wasn't this soft.

[He observes this, fingers pressed against the comforter. It's not entirely the past; made from it, certainly, but with evident differences]

BARRELS IN enjoy your pain

[transcendent]

[ The day everything changed Albedo had taken to his own bed earlier than the others, hiding his irreparably streaked red face under starched sheets and a sterile pillow—refusing to be consoled, unwilling to be, unable, and Rubedo and Nigredo had selfishly obliged him by leaving him to his grief. They didn't know what else to do. Albedo understands that now because he senses it in Rubedo's thoughts, that terrible powerlessness. Rubedo was Rubedo; Rubedo was the leader. It had never occurred to Albedo to think of Rubedo as a person whose strength might fail.

The betrayal had been devastating.

And as if foreshadowing the night of their descent, Albedo waited in the dark until long after curfew, a huddled mass beneath the covers, for a comforting presence that never came. ]

No.

[ Taken as a response to Jr.'s second statement, it's agreement. Taken as a response to the first, it's a transparent lie.

His head throbs under starched sheets and a sterile pillow, tight with tears, eyes burning, nose burning, hiccuping wet breaths, inconsolable, but still a small weight settles on the edge of the bed before long. Still Rubedo tries: he shushes and soothes, holds him tight enough to stop the tremors, and even if it's through a watery voice he tells Albedo there's no reason to be afraid because it all works out in the end. We'll always be together. It's gonna be okay. And Albedo nods because he can't speak and falls asleep with a mind quieted by the fact that Rubedo just knows the future, and nothing goes wrong, and everything ends up being okay.

This never happened, of course. But it's a beautiful falsehood, isn't it?

Rubedo?

Regardless of which part he's really chosen to answer, one or the other or both, Albedo's expression remains stubbornly resolute as his voice catches on something rough in his throat. ]

Not at all.

SCREECHING EVERYWHERE-

[positron]

[It shouldn't come as any surprise that Albedo's answer is vague. Neither forthright nor honest, something veiled just enough not to leave one with no purchase. Yet the lack of answer says far more than Jr. assumes Albedo means it to. When he skirts around a subject, it makes a statement all its own, and in that omission there's a louder message than colorful wordplay might convey.

Although in some ways that banter, however biting it was at times, felt lighter than silence does now.

For his part, Jr. chooses not to question it further. Albedo's emotions are a loaded jumble, louder even than loaded silence, and far more difficult to respond to. There was a time when dealing with his brother's feelings seemed simpler - more likely, he hadn't understood them as well as he'd assumed he had.

Eventually, he moves along with the subject at hand, responding not to Albedo's obscure answers but instead to his earlier statement]

The past's not that bad, as long as you don't get lost in it. What's anyone without memories?

[Though it's not really the point, at least it's something he believes. As painful as parts of the past are for Jr., he wouldn't discard them. Sometimes he'd wished he could, but in the end, they define who he is.

Whether Albedo feels the same about it may be another matter entirely]

gotta get all my gay out in here tbh

[transcendent]

[ Albedo tilts his head to the side, bedclothes rustling. He's a little paler than Rubedo where he's made their fingers overlap; most of Albedo's life has passed in space, while he imagines Rubedo grew up under some warm sun, synthetic or not but capable of emitting the ultraviolet wavelengths that would darken his skin just slightly. Albedo, of course, could've spent every day in the same places and nothing would change. That's not the point, either.

He realizes all of a sudden that he has no idea what Rubedo's been up to these last fifteen years, having always vindictively satisfied himself with assuming "living a life of blissful ignorance alongside Nigredo" and leaving it at that.

Rubedo's right, really. Why get lost in their shared past? There's so much more waiting just ahead.

Having shifted inward, loosely fetal, head pillowed on his now-retracted arm, he's able to feel the illusory dreamlike warmth of Rubedo's long legs soaking into his knees. He can't read Rubedo's expression from down here, but his hand is back again—the other one this time—curiously examining the first scar he can find on Jr.'s forearm. He couldn't tell you what his own face looks like, either, even if he cared; he's not even sure what this feeling is. It feels bigger than he is, like it could swallow him whole, and it hurts a little, and he likes it. ]

Hey, Rubedo... you went, didn't you? You and Nigredo. [ Greedy, questing; hungry for Jr.'s experiences. ] To the beach?

i see this. jr. doesn't but i do.

[positron]

Been to a few, while traveling for business.

[Jr. isn't sure whether he ought to admit as much. It was something the three of them were supposed to do together, something that they'd been excited about as children. The world outside of the Institute, a world beyond battlefields and encephalon dives, had been some mysterious yawning fascination for them all. They'd been so limited in where they could go, what they could do.

And then when those constraints were gone, it was only him and Gaignun. Not that they hadn't faced certain limitations of their own, but that was different. They'd seen a great many things that had been far beyond their reach, left only to vague whispy imaginings.

The beach they'd once all decided they'd visit was among those. Hell, he'd made his own beach. But none of it exactly captured what he'd expected as a child. What he'd anticipated alongside his brothers. It was different in a way he couldn't define.

And he'd supposed it was the gap between the imagining of a thing and its reality]

Was always different than I thought it'd be.

[He admits, though he doubts it changes the fact that Albedo wasn't included. That he wasn't there with them]

yeah albedo's definitely the smart twin

[transcendent]

[ If he's not mistaken—and he's not, is he—he'd think he detects a sliver of apology in that answer. And maybe melancholy, too, without knowing precisely whether or not it's his own—things never are exactly as you imagine them to be. Albedo closes his eyes and tries to let it all flow through him, at his most elated when he's not sure where his thoughts end and Rubedo's begin, hoping that if even a sliver of that rapture washes back into Rubedo that maybe—

That he'll... understand.

There's an indescribable shift in Albedo's perception that he's only just becoming aware of: it's like the mists are clearing between them, like his jagged edges are being sanded down by a slow tide. It's not that different from the moments following Rubedo's deathblow, he can suppose. Even less different from the moment of his resurrection. Open books can be read or written in, Rubedo reminds him without meaning to; an open door is accessible from both directions. Whether or not Rubedo's conscious mind only gives what he chooses to give, it's enough, and Albedo doesn't rightly know at first what to do with all this new perspective.

Rubedo's courage. His fear. His helplessness. His good intentions and bitterest regrets.

Seen through a lens other than his own betrayal, madness, it's Albedo who unexpectedly begins to understand. And in understanding, he finds abruptly that his forgiveness is uncontrollable. Hell, the grieving angry child in him doesn't want to let things go; he can feel the war it's conjured in his psyche and knows that Rubedo probably can, too. An embarrassing brat, willfully blinded by his own agony at being abandoned. Albedo understands, but he hurts, but he understands.

He swallows and sits up, perpendicular to Jr. on the mattress, legs in half-lotus and searching Jr.'s face for what to say like they're twelve again. ]

It's useless to cling to what could've been... [ he begins, slower and with less certainty than he intends. Annoyed. ] Rewriting history's a futile effort, anyway.

[ A pause, a smirk. His knee's in just the right place to bump against Jr.'s. ]

At least, it is now.