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

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.