voidseeing | [Anonymous Voice/Written]

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[Anonymous Voice/Written]

[The events of a week and a half ago still hang heavy over Gai's mind, something that's unusual for him. He's had his body altered without his consent, even his mind during a few experiments before, but to have his memory messed with... it's far more disconcerting than even he wants to admit. Add in everything else that happened, and you've got one broody former terrorist leader who can't even take out his unhappiness in the Battle Dome due to that damn virus.

So he opts to express himself in another way that's familiar to him, one that doesn't require any physical exertion. Something tells him that he's not the only one feeling this way right now...

When the journal entry begins, the camera is covered, obscuring its owner. All there is is a song playing over the journals, letting the music and the lyrics speak for themselves.

But that isn't all. Once it finishes playing, a written message will appear in a neat and practiced hand.]

There is a universal constant among this world and every other. The world will always force a choice on those within it: either to sit quietly by and be selected out, or to adapt and change. Those are the only two paths that can be chosen.

Our opponents made a fatal mistake when they expected us to choose the former. They underestimated our desire to survive, and that proved to be their undoing. We rose to the challenge, and we survived. And we will keep on surviving, no matter what they may try to send at us. We won't roll over and play dead the way they expect us to.

Well done, Luceti. You should be proud.

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Elizabeth...

[At once, his expression loses all of its coldness, and he's standing and moving towards her. When he sees that tear with the medkits, though, he stops in his tracks, realizing what they signify. She'd opened that tear with harpoons when she had been frightened at the beach; they'd represented what she'd wanted or felt she needed at that moment. A weapon to attack her perceived assailant.

Now there are medkits, and the meaning behind those twists his heart into a painful knot. Swiftly he closes the distance between them and just pulls her into his arms. It's probably poor comfort after having a bombshell like that dropped on her, but right now, it's all he can really do.]

It's all right. I was satisfied, and I don't regret it at all. Besides, it means I no longer have any ties to my world. There's no reason for me to go back there ever again. I can stay with you, either here or in your own world.

[It probably won't make up for the fact he's dead, but it's something, at least.]

[Elizabeth can hear him, but she still isn't processing what he's saying. All she can see is Gai dying, over, and over, and over. Each time in a new, maddening way. Each one more gruesome than the last.]

[Hands still shaking, she presses them into Gai's back. As though trying to convince herself he was still there, still solid, still alive. But her mind was running away with her, Gai being shot, brained, fighting off crows--]

[Dead in her arms, with her knowing that he never wanted this.]

[She fists her hands into the back of Gai's shirt and screams, trying to blow the image out of her mind before she starts crying.]

[And Gai just squeezes her, as if trying to meld her against his body, show her that he's alive and well with a heartbeat that no doubt is resonating in her ears right now. Telling her was the wrong decision, he realizes that now. It was foolish of him to expect her to react any other way... but at the same time, he didn't feel right keeping something so important from her. It was something that she had to know.

Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, he'll stop feeling like such a horrible person. When she screams, he swears he can feel his heart break within his chest, and all he can think is this isn't what I wanted...]

[She doesn't scream again, apparently just the one was all she could handle. But she's sobbing, rather steadily, against Gai's chest. And she won't let go, she just keeps tightening her arms around him with her ear to his chest. She can hear it, and she can feel him breathing, but the image of him dead won't leave her--imaginary as it is.]

How... How could you think I wouldn't care? Did you not tell me because you thought I wouldn't care?

I didn't tell you because I was afraid you would care too much.

[And that much, at least, is the truth. He was afraid she'd react exactly the way she's doing now-- getting upset, crying, even screaming. If there's one thing he's learned over the past two months that he's been with her, it's that he can't stand seeing her unhappy. And this... this is more unhappy than he's EVER seen her before.

It hurts him probably just as much as what she's learned is hurting her now.]

That happened a while ago... [Elizabeth shakes her head into Gai's chest, shoulders shaking again from sobs. The second Elizabeth waded out into the middle of the ocean was the same second she grew to 'care too much'.]

[Her grief didn't come from Gai being dead in his own world. He was perfectly alive here. It came from the fact that he died thinking no one would miss him. He died and Elizabeth wasn't there to save him. He was dead and if the Malnosso sent him home...]

Don't ever tell me I wouldn't miss you. Understand?

[Again he squeezes her and kisses her hair in a vain attempt to comfort her. That's never been his strong suit, he knows that much. No one has ever really comforted him; his only knowledge in that area comes from things he's seen and read, and right now, they all seem woefully inadequate. Hopefully the sincerity of his actions will make up for the lack of knowing what to do or say.]

I understand.

[Then, more quietly:]

... I'm sorry.

[That apology is for multiple things, not just for thinking she wouldn't miss him.]

[Elizabeth nods into Gai's chest again, fingers loosening in Gai's shirt. Her whole body relaxes into Gai's arms, even if she's still teary and tired. This entire conversation, not just the tear, has exhausted her.]

I'm sorry I put a dent in your wall.

The Malnosso will fix it in a day or two.

[Honestly, the dent is the last thing he's worried about at the moment. His primary concern is Elizabeth and how she's feeling, because he knows damn well it isn't good.]

Come on, let's sit down.

[And he makes a move to guide her back to the couch where he'd been sitting before, one hand sliding down to her waist both to support and guide her while still holding her against him.]

[Elizabeth walks with Gai, refusing to take her arms from around him. She's still shaking a little, mostly from the adrenaline crash, but she holds on despite how awkward it is to move.]

[She lets Gai sit first, then climbs into his lap. Facing him, fingers playing in his hair as though it's the first time she's seen it, looking into his eyes as though trying to reassure herself that he was still life in them.]

I love you. No matter what happened or happens or will happen.

[Once Elizabeth gets settled, he wraps his own arms around her waist in a gentle yet secure hold, not wanting to let her get out of his lap anytime soon. When her fingers thread into his hair, he lets his eyes slide shut as a soft, pleased sound escapes him, just quietly basking in her touch and the intimacy of the moment.]

I love you too. Whatever you've done or will do, I couldn't care less about it. I'd be a hypocrite to judge you for anything like that.

Don't... No more of that 'who's worse' game. [She puts her fingers over Gai's mouth lightly.] We're happy now, we're honest and good now. Now is all I want to remember.

[Elizabeth's fingers fall out of Gai's hair as more dark imaginings of Gai's death come back to her. Even with his hands heavy on her waist and his neck warm under her fingers, she's scared.]

Please tell me how it happened. I've seen so many people die, Gai, I'll have nightmares that each one of them was you if you don't tell me.

[Now his eyes open again and his expression shifts to something darker and more resigned. While he may have accepted his death and may not having any regrets, thinking about it still isn't something he likes to do.]

... I was stabbed by a pair of spikes.

[There's no pretty way to say it. It hadn't been a clean death; it had been painful and bloody and god, he's sure Shu must be having nightmares about it too...]

I was trying to reach Mana, to set her soul free from the GHQ's control before they could use her to bring about the Apocalypse.

[Again, his expression softens.]

I distracted her so that Shu could finish her off.

[Elizabeth strokes Gai's shoulder with her thumb, trying to be comforting, trying to apologize for making him relive something he clearly doesn't like. She rests her forehead against his, puts her hands back in his hair, closes her eyes to picture it. And it hurts her, it does, but it's more poetic than anything she's seen before.]

And so you have no regrets. Because he did finish her off. [She assumes.]

[After a moment she opens her eyes again.] Where?

He did.

[That contact is comforting, enough so that talking about it isn't as unpleasant as he'd thought. He allows her to stroke his hair for a few moments before he lifts his hands up to catch her wrists gently, then guide her hands down to rest them over both sides of his chest, where the spikes had pierced.]

Here.

[He's not going to tell her just how big they were-- that's one detail that she doesn't need to know.]

[God...]

[Right through his lungs, maybe his heart too depending on the size. It would have hurt, maybe he had been afraid at the end, knowing he was dying and nothing would fix it. Maybe even she couldn't have saved him from that.]

[She looks down at her hands, expecting to imagine blood and holes she could see the couch through. But, thank God, it was just her hands and just his heart beating under her hands.]

[Before she really knows what she's doing, her fingers are working the buttons on Gai's shirt.]

[This... was not the reaction Gai was expecting, as his slight intake of breath will make clear. Not that he's complaining; after that rollercoaster of emotions, he's pretty sure they could both use something to get their minds off of everything that had happened. Besides, what better way to defy death than with something that's so very primal and utterly alive?

To show that he's okay with things going in this direction, he moves his hands back to her waist and leans in to kiss her, just softly at first, letting her set the pace for this.]

[She keeps it soft and light as she finishes the buttons, realizing that the tenor between them has changed. There's something twisting between them, and Elizabeth isn't fighting it. She's adding to it, in fact. But--]

I wanted to see. I just... want to see first... [She pulls open Gai's shirt and looks at where Gai placed her hands. It's just like she remembered: perfect and unscarred. Like it had never happened. For some reason, that makes it easier to set the thought aside in her head. Like a truth she knew existed, but never saw, and so it remained on the periphery of her mind.]

Did you see my back? [It was only fair, he suffered through something she asked him to relive. She would do the same for him.] When you unbuttoned my dress?

[Whether that was due to him being brought here after his death or some meddling on the part of the Malnosso, Gai doesn't know. What he does know is that he's glad there aren't any scars there, because he knows how much seeing something like every time he took his shirt off would upset her. It would be an inescapable reminder of the fact that he was dead every time they tried to get intimate. How awful would that be for her to have to face?

He doesn't move for another kiss when she pulls away. Instead, he just lets her finish the unbuttoning and open his shirt to look.]

Yeah, I did. That little scar.

[But he won't ask any questions about it. What she chooses to tell him is entirely up to her-- on her own terms, not his.]

[She slides her hands over Gai's chest, almost feeling for a bump or a slight valley, anything that could indicate there had been some brutal injury. Nothing, he's perfect. Wonderfully perfect.]

That's from... the last time I underwent a procedure. [This hurts her to say too, because it was so violent, so frightening, she said whatever she could to try to make them stop.] It was a cable, with a pin. Meant to control my ability to open tears through... punishment, whenever I tried.

[She takes one of the hands Gai has on her waist and directs it, through much uncomfortable bending of her arm, to where it is.] It wasn't death, but I wanted to die so badly. Because I was afraid no one was going to free me.

That... was the darkest and most painful time in my life. [She bows her head, overwhelmed. But at least he's seen it now--her own relived fear and anguish. ]

[Torture. Pure and simple, that's what it was. They'd tortured her, all because of an ability she didn't have any control over. And now there's a rage rising in him as she says this, her words almost getting lost in the roaring in his ears born from pure fury and a desire to hunt each and every person responsible for that down and kill them brutally.

He isn't proud of that side of him. But right now, he doesn't give a damn.

It isn't until she's moving his hand that he snaps back to reality and turns his head to look at her. And oh, does he understand that feeling.]

My stepfather deliberately injected me with an artificially-strengthened version of this virus in an attempt to make me a suitable mate for Eve. I was lucky; I survived. Most of the others didn't. They died right in front of me, and I lived in fear that I was going to be next.

[Torture is something he understands far too well.]

Gai, oh my God... [She can imagine it, and though she doesn't want to she's imagining it anyway. How? How did these things happen? How did a father figure treat his children so? How did he kill his children with one hand, and sponge away dirt and blood off of her with the other?]

[Wait, no, that wasn't right. Elizabeth is feeling too much to keep her life away from Gai's recounting. She should listen, and really hear what Gai is saying, but it's starting to crush her. Scramble what was her experience and what Gai's had been.]

[Without looking at Gai, Elizabeth lets her forehead fall against Gai's shoulder.]

You would think we were the world's last panacea and death rattling around in box, at the same time.

In the end, we weren't the Adam and Eve they wanted us to be.

[That was another similar thread between them: both of their father figures had wanted them to be the start of a new world, and neither one of them had been. They'd both rebelled and sought to choose their own futures-- futures that involved repaying what had been done to them.

Terrible, perhaps, but more than understandable. Certainly not something that either one of them would judge the other for.

Gai pulls her closer, runs his hand up and down her back in a soothing gesture. What a pair the two of them make.]

No, we never could be. We're too wild for that.

[For a few moments, Elizabeth lets herself come down from that horrible, sad place by focusing on Gai's touch. It was repetitive, and warm, and released all of the tension in her back and shoulders.]

[She slides forward on Gai's lap, all the way forward until her knees hit the back of the couch. Her nose runs a little mobius against Gai's neck. Depression is starting to take her, she wants Gai to keep it away from her. She wants to trust someone with herself again, she doesn't want to feel like her life has been nothing but these offenses against her.]

Gai... [She straightens up, barely an inch away from Gai's mouth. Something is keeping her from pushing on with it, though.] Is it... strange that I want you to touch me now? After all of the things we just said?

[Gai lets out a quiet little sound when her nose makes contact with the skin of his neck; though he tries to rein in the shiver that also results from that, he isn't quite successful, and the hand on her back stills for a moment before resuming its slow, repetitive motions. They both need this contact right now, he knows that much. Something loving, something kind, not something that's meant to hurt.

Which is why he isn't at all surprised by what she says next. Instead, he manages a crooked little smile at her, an attempt at being reassuring.]

No, I think that's the most normal thing either one of us has said yet.

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