[memshare] Friends: part 1

((Note: I've linked several scenes from the manga here for context: clicking on them will show you the actual scenes!! Technically they're all optional, but I've marked with asterisks the ones I'd highly recommend viewing. Also just. Just ignore Allen being there. Sometimes the protagonist of your series gets dragged into a canonical memshare event and your business gets spilled everywhere. It's fine.))

*The first thing you hear is his voice.

You barely know what it is to be conscious, and already, he is overwhelming your senses--chattering excitedly, dashing off to get the researchers, tangling himself in their legs as he tries to get close to you and wish you a happy birthday, Yuu! He is noise and energy and joy and life, nothing at all like this dark, cold place: Research Lab 6, you learn, the place where you've been... not born, that's a word for humans--awakened. He, Alma, my name is Alma, Yuu! is the only other person your age: The rest are the researchers in charge, as the ones like you two continue to slumber in their cold pools.

He's delighted by you. You hate him immediately.

Of course, that's hardly surprising. You hate everything. You feel deeply furious all the time, and you see no reason to hide that. What reason is there to smile? There's nothing here that makes you happy. You hate this place of black and gray and white, reeking of the disinfectant they use to clean up your blood. (It should be--blue? Shouldn't it? When you look up? You don't know why you think that.) You hate your body, the way it feels all wrong for reasons you can't explain, the way it stitches itself back together no matter what you do to it, so different from the humans that watch you: different, but still excruciatingly painful, each and every time. You hate Alma, who smiles so brightly in such a dark, shitty place, who chats with the researchers that take you away each day--as if they're friends, or family, whatever the hell that is. As if they're not the people who hook you up and tear you to pieces each and every day, all for the sake of some holy war outside the lab walls. It's the entire reason you exist, but quite frankly, you don't care. As far as you're concerned, this is your life: darkness and torture and Alma.

Alma, who looks at you with wide eyes that shine with tears every time you rebuff him. Alma, who trails after you regardless of how cruel you are, pathetic in his desperation.

(Alma, who terrifies you, because you don't understand him, and you hate that you want to.)

-

When it's all said and done, you realize: You should've never told them about the hallucinations.

In your defense, you'd barely been conscious for a few months. How were you supposed to know? They were just flashes: flowers and blue and a faceless woman, a ghostly figure who makes your heart ache with a feeling you can't name. You had no way to know you were handing them a red flag on bended knee. It was just another thing to be angry about: the visions and dreams, and Alma, and the tests, and Alma. You're bitter and angry and you hate it all, still, always, you hate him--

*Until the day that something gives way, and then--you don't.

For the first time, you dare to feel happy.

(You should've trusted your instincts. Of course it couldn't last. There could never be happiness for the damned. But even now, you can't bring yourself to regret it. You wouldn't trade those days for the world.

The Order has taken so much from you but they can't ever take your love. You should know: They tried.)

[memshare] Friends part 2

((Note: I've linked several scenes from the manga here for context: clicking on them will show you the actual scenes!! Technically they're all optional except the very last one, but I've marked with asterisks the ones I'd highly recommend viewing.))

You don't realize what's happening until you're in his arms.

As you stir, bits and pieces come back to you. The hallucinations have gotten worse, and you've been struggling to stay conscious. You heard the researchers talking about you in hushed, grim tones, but you couldn't stay awake long enough to hear what they were saying. Something is wrong with you: something your regenerative powers can't fix.

(What you know intrinsically is this: No one else has woken up since you did, despite the way they slumber in their pools. The two of you are still put through rigorous, painful synchronization tests, forceful attempts to bind you to Innocence weapons so that you may fulfill your purpose and fight God's holy war. You cannot die, no matter how many times they kill you with these attempts. You have visions of flowers and a woman whose face you can't see: the last one hurt so badly, you passed out.

And... despite your best efforts, Alma has wormed his way into your heart, and you've learned what it feels like to smile, even though you go through hell every single day.)

You realize, as he jostles you with his frantic running, that he's saving you. Stupid, stubborn, loving Alma, your fellow monster--the only one who understands you, the one who taught you happiness, the only bright spot in this wretched, shitty place, is risking his safety for yours. Even as the guard's spell needles slam into your bodies, sending you sprawling across the floor, he tries, desperately, to save you. He smiles at you, that stupid, hateful, brilliant smile, and kicks you off a cliff with a prayer for luck.

As if you've ever been lucky.

You survive, because that's all this wretched, nigh-immortal body is good for. You hit the water, and it fucking hurts with the spell needle jammed into your shoulder, but you claw your way up the wall anyway, fueled by murderous, spiteful rage. You're dizzy with pain and confusion, and you scare the shit out of the two men on the other side of the wall, but you don't have the strength to explain. They pull the needle out on your gritted orders, and as you lose consciousness again, you recognize the scent of blood.

-

*When you wake again, it all makes sense.

You laugh, hysterical, because you must. You're too furious to do anything else. Of course the Order did this to you. You gave them one lifetime of service already: Why wouldn't they demand a second? The moment the Innocence resonated with you, you ceased to be anything but a weapon. They melted you down, reforged you, trying to milk your strength beyond the very last of what you had to offer--and you've failed them by remembering you were once human.

You're broken. So they discard you.

-

At least, they try. But it turns out they built you a little too well.

Most people, you think, would assume you lived through spite alone. You wouldn't bother to correct them. Spite, anger, and hatred fuel a lot of your decisions, and that was even more back then. When you regain consciousness yet again, you are incandescent with fury. But the truth is, you lived for love.

She is still nameless, faceless. Her words echo in your head and bury themselves in your chest, but you couldn't describe her voice even if you tried. And yet--she is the only proof you have that you were once human. The love you feel for her is the only thing the Order can't touch (and it is love, undeniably, you don't need Alma's stupid fucking books to know that).

They've taken so fucking much from you. You won't let them have this too. You won't let them have you.

-

You don't exactly have a plan, though.

Your Innocence finally, finally recognizes you--the exact flavor of your hatred, maybe, or the intensity of your longing for that woman. It makes you stronger than ever, not that inhuman strength's ever been an issue for you and Alma. You drag your battered, still bleeding body past the remnants of the door you break open, and you wander, listless and miserable. Now what? All you want is freedom, but despite it all, you don't want to slaughter your way out. You'll never forgive the researchers, the Order, but grief and misery have overtaken your rage for the moment. Your thoughts are still full of her: of who she might've been, and what they might've done to her, and whether or not she's fast asleep in the very same sort of pool you and Alma crawled out of. Can you find her? Would she recognize you? Would you recognize her?

Does it matter, now that you have him...?

As you walk, you stumble across another victim. Some poor soul, blind and half-dead, hooked up to a table. You bleed on him, on accident--and it turns out your blood is more potent than you thought, because it saves him, and. Well. What else can you do, but drag him out of there with you? If you're going to jailbreak, you might as well do what you can.

So you carry the man on your tiny back, and you listen to him admit that he's only calm because of your presence, and you realize--no, you admit, finally, if only to yourself, that Alma kept you sane. That you love him in ways you don't fully understand, even after the seven long months you've been alive.

You'll be alright, both of you. You don't need to get revenge on the Order, even if you would feel nothing but satisfaction if the whole place burned to the ground. All you need is each other.

*Then you find him. And it all goes so terribly, terribly wrong.