[ It's not like Emerald's stayed before... in any case, he checks the drawers for any unused toothbrushes that Emerald can use for the night. He'll just buy a new one to replace it with tomorrow.
Once he finds one (it's light blue), he opens it and hands it to her. ]
It's the most beautiful I've ever seen you in.
[ It's said so dryly he's obviously joking. He doesn't know what to even say to something like that?? ]
I quite like that shirt, though. I can't let you have it, but we can look for one that's similar.
[ She shouts through the door, then goes to brush her teeth. Everything in this house is weirdly color coded so she's pretty sure this is Kuroko's toothbrush but oh well.
Emerald finishes up her other getting ready for bed tasks, taking her time as her mood drops again while she's alone. For a little while she just sits on the counter and stares at the wall. Any moment she isn't focused on something else thoughts of Cinder keep rushing in, memories of being on the streets, of being scared. Of being alone. The bathroom is getting covered in darkness, and she lets it for a little while so she can let the fear pass instead of trying to shove it down or get rid of it. Once the moment passes and the light comes back, she exits the bathroom and seeks Akashi out. ]
[ He's staring at where Emerald would come from from where he is, although he stops and looks away when he sees her finally out. She took a while, and that was worrisome. ]
[ He can't ask if she's alright because she obviously isn't, but he wants to help. Now that she's out, he finally gets up and slowly walks over to where she is. ]
Is there anything I can do for you?
[ He'll make funny faces for her if she wanted him to. ]
[ It's not a 'no' but it's probably not what he wants to hear. He is doing something- the fact that it didn't happen until she was alone again is proof of that much. ]
Did I ever.. show you? What I used to look like?
[ She really doesn't know how to explain to him why she's having little fear attacks when she's alone now. It should just be loss, mourning, grief. But it's so much more than that to Emerald. The one thing that seemed to have worked in her life, for the longest at least, fell apart. Emerald didn't just lose a person, she lost her way, her purpose, and the one person she believed could keep her from ending up back on the streets. She can't figure out how to tell him that just letting her stay here and feel like she's not in a free fall is more than she could ask from anyone. ]
[ She turns around without argument and heads back to his bedroom. ]
Afraid one of your friends are going to see me wearing your clothes?
[ Such scandal. Her teasing doesn't quite have the teasing tone she normally does it with though. It's lackluster at best. She heads straight over to sit on his bed once they're in his room and she reaches up to undo her twin tails. ]
[ Considering what she might show him may be sensitive. He doesn't know. But it's personal to him, and someone else seeing it, even though Emerald can definitely focus on just him, would be weird.
Once they're inside, he closes the door and opens the windows. It's a lot safer here when with company, so he's not scared of leaving his windows open. He hasn't realised yet that he doesn't seem to be afraid of being out once the sun has set. ]
[ Emerald notices the difference immediately. When he was back at the apartment, he had deadbolts and multiple locks. Even with Emerald on his couch, he was clearly unable to feel safe.
Maybe moving away from her was better for him. Another thing to try not to focus too hard on. She needs to just be glad he's feeling better, not upset that she wasn't enough to make him feel safe. She knows she had nothing to do with it.
Once he's settled in, she shows him a simple memory: it's just her in some bathroom looking in the mirror with a handful of cheap paper towels, trying to scrub at her face with dispenser hand soap to clean up. She's skinny- not just thin, skinny. There's no definition in her muscles, her shoulders are up like a cat with all it's fur raised, and her hair is long and pulled back. Her clothes are a different but similar outfit, simpler, a couple of tears but at least in tact. There's a sense of urgency attached to the memory, but more than that there's hunger. Aching, consuming, desperate hunger like a black hole in the pit of he stomach that makes her head foggy and weirdly nauseous at the same time. There's so much fear and desperation that just feels like background noise to that, and unbearable exhaustion, as if she hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time in over a week. The memory ends with some banging on the door and a voice shouting that the bathroom was for customers only. ]
[ She really did look different then. The facial features, not so much, but how she carried herself and her overall aura then and now are vastly different. Akashi likes the Emerald he knows better, he concludes, and perhaps he has to thank Cinder for helping her out then.
The feelings Emerald has when she shows Akashi her memory is contagious that even he begins to feel a little lightheaded and nauseated. He fights the feeling until the memory ends, and that's the only time he motions for his bed so he can sit down. ]
I'm sorry that you used to life that way. Things have changed, though. I need you to believe that.
[ Akashi isn't a mindreader, so he can't exactly tell what Emerald wanted to say when she brought up this memory. She cares about Cinder so much, though, and Cinder was the one who took her away from that life and onto something better. She may not be alive anymore, but that doesn't mean Emerald's life should end too. ]
I know in my head that I can do it. I know in my head that things are different, even here from Remnant.
[ Akashi helps with that. A lot. Despite that she lost a lot just learning Cinder was gone. ] I don't know how else to show you, but I need you to understand because if you don't then eventually when I can't just stop being scared of that, it's going to make you think it's not worth it. That's even scarier, and then I get stuck in a room because I can't see the floor or anything in it to get out. I can know in my head that won't happen, but..
[ She trails off for a moment, moving to sit next to him on the bed and looking honestly kind of antsy, worried. ]
It's not that you can't help or that I'm ignoring you or I don't believe when you say stuff like that. It's something inside me that I can't stop because of that. Because that's most of my life. Does that make sense?
[ No one ever wants to actually deal with her shit. So she wants him to just understand that she has a lot of it, that it's not just normal feelings of anxiety, it's something deep in her core that he can tell her she's being stupid about a thousand times, but believing it and feeling it are different. ]
[ He listens, because he realises that's what Emerald probably needs right now. ]
It makes sense.
[ And there's nothing else he can really say about it. He remembered a time when Emerald placed a hand on his head and pet him. It made him feel good when she did. So he does the same thing, but he doesn't ruffle her hair. His hand just kind of stays there longer than it should.
(He's trying.) ]
That means we'll just have you live the better and healthier life longer than what you've known.
[ His words carry so much weight to them that they might seem empty. Akashi never says anything he doesn't mean, though. He's determined to make Emerald happy. If not happy, he'll settle for her not waking up being afraid of so many things. Even just alleviating some of her fears would be a victory for him. He wants to be able to change her life in some way. Not for him—if it was for him, he'd have been more aggressive about it.
Other people may see Emerald as some sort of villain, and Akashi won't ignore what wrong Emerald has done before. He focuses on the good, though. She's done good, too, and her circumstances for doing what she's done in the past weren't because it was what she wanted to do for no reason. There were reasons, and they were beyond her control. Maybe Akashi is deluded too, though, but he doesn't see anything wrong with how he perceives things, especially in this case. ]
[ Emerald doesn't pull away from his hand on her head. It's weird, but she gets the intent. His hand is warm and he means to comfort her. She doesn't pull away for some time.
Emerald doesn't know whether she's a villain or not. She's done bad things. She'll joke about being a bad guy, but ultimately it isn't as if she's actively seeking to do these bad things. They're payment for being saved. Nothing comes without a cost, and this was the only price anyone was willing to offer her. Cinder is the one person who offered it, and she gave Emerald more than that. Food and clean water and shelter were what she agreed to, yes. Someone looking out for her, someone who cared whether she was there or not, someone who would teach her things and would protect her. Someone who cared about her, offered a family to her. That's what Cinder was to her.
Which is probably why Akashi confuses her so much, because he offers something similar but with no price. It doesn't make sense to her, because nothing comes without a price. She just seems to take and take from him and she doesn't know what it is she gives back, so she's decided she'll protect him and his friends at any cost. That's the best she can do, isn't it?
Emerald doesn't know if those words are empty or real. She's inclined to believe him- Akashi doesn't lie. She just doesn't know how he can promise something like that. She supposes it goes with their promises not to leave each other behind here. Promises they intend to keep but ultimately can't say how. ]
I want you to be right.
[ She leans back slowly at first then flops down on the bed all at once, pulling away from his hand atop her head only because of the intentional fall. ]
[ He always wins (except when Kuroko is involved), and therefore, he is always right (except when Kuroko is involved).
Akashi lets his hand fall on his bed, then he places it on his lap, unmoving from where he's seated. ]
We're friends, aren't we?
[ And he would do anything for his friends. He's a lot nicer to Emerald because he can see that she needs that kind of positivity in her life. That isn't to say that he plays favourites with his friends. This is just how their relationship turned out to be. He would have changed the way he treated her if she treated him differently. ]
[ She does start at least moving to properly get into the bed instead of half-assed laying from where she was sitting. She doesn't really need a story, but something to distract her so she can think about anything else will help her rest. ]
[ It really is his time to return the favour, isn't it? Akashi lets out a soft chuckle as he shifts to move towards where the headboard of his bed is. He rests his back there and places his hands on his lap. ]
[ She turns on her side, facing him for now with her head on the pillow staring at his side. She'll turn her back to him when she actually goes to sleep but for now, she's paying attention and comfortable. ]
[ The lights begin to dim until it's completely dark in Akashi's room. It's only for a second though, as small colourful firefly-like lights begin to dance around the room. They're red and green, both the shades of their hair, but there are some yellow and white lights that move around, as well. ]
One dark night, the Sultan's vizier, Jafar, meets with a thief who hands over half of a gold scarab beetle. Once Jafar has put the one that he has and the one that he's just received together, the beetle flies off and causes a giant tiger's head to rise from the sand. The mouth leads to the Cave of Wonders.
[ NO HE'S NOT TALKING ABOUT A PORNO ]
Jafar tries to enter the cave to retrieve a lamp, but the tiger's head speaks and says that only one may enter—one whose worth lies far within: the Diamond in the Rough. The thief tries to enter, but the tiger bites down on the thief, closing off the entrance way and instructing Jafar to seek out the Diamond in the Rough.
The following day, a street urchin named Aladdin steals a loaf of bread so he can his pet monkey can eat. [ A pause. ] I don't know why someone like him has a pet—he can barely fend for himself.
Aladdin was about to eat the bread he stole when he sees some hungry children. He decides to give it to them and leaves to what he calls his home. He tells his pet monkey that someday, things will be better and people will see him for what he really is instead of as a public menace.
The Sultan of Agrabah, on the other hand, is having problems finding a prince for Princess Jasmine to marry. He talks to Jasmine, who claims she is tired of living her life being "cooped up behind walls", which leads him to speak with Jafar.
Jafar mesmerises the Sultan with his snake staff and convinces him to give him the blue diamond ring to find Jasmine a husband. In reality, Jafar needed the ring to discover the identity of the "Diamond in the Rough".
Jasmine, who does not want to be married off, decides to run away disguised as a peasant. However, her act of giving an apple to a hungry little boy lands her in trouble with a merchant until the street rat Aladdin intervenes and leads Aladdin away just in time before she can lose a hand as payment for the fruit. At the same time, Jafar discovers the identity of the "Diamond in the Rough". It's Aladdin.
[ He stops to look at Emerald to see if she's going to interrupt him or say anything else. If she wants to ask questions, she can. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I was just going to look for a toothbrush you can use.
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[ She doesn't think it's that big of a deal, but she guesses this means he does so she won't argue. ]
So how do I look in rainbow?
[ She moves to sit on the bathroom counter, out of his way so he can look. ]
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Once he finds one (it's light blue), he opens it and hands it to her. ]
It's the most beautiful I've ever seen you in.
[ It's said so dryly he's obviously joking. He doesn't know what to even say to something like that?? ]
I quite like that shirt, though. I can't let you have it, but we can look for one that's similar.
[ A tie-dye bandeau???? ]
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[ She's joking too. She seems to be acting a little more herself now that she isn't thinking she has to leave, at least for a brief moment. ]
No thanks. I do better with neutrals.
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Here I thought we would have matching, ah, shirts.
[ But he closes the door so Emerald can have her privacy again. He'll just chill in the living area for now. ]
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[ She shouts through the door, then goes to brush her teeth. Everything in this house is weirdly color coded so she's pretty sure this is Kuroko's toothbrush but oh well.
Emerald finishes up her other getting ready for bed tasks, taking her time as her mood drops again while she's alone. For a little while she just sits on the counter and stares at the wall. Any moment she isn't focused on something else thoughts of Cinder keep rushing in, memories of being on the streets, of being scared. Of being alone. The bathroom is getting covered in darkness, and she lets it for a little while so she can let the fear pass instead of trying to shove it down or get rid of it. Once the moment passes and the light comes back, she exits the bathroom and seeks Akashi out. ]
What're you doing?
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I was just waiting for you.
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The room went dark, I was waiting it out.
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Is there anything I can do for you?
[ He'll make funny faces for her if she wanted him to. ]
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[ It's not a 'no' but it's probably not what he wants to hear. He is doing something- the fact that it didn't happen until she was alone again is proof of that much. ]
Did I ever.. show you? What I used to look like?
[ She really doesn't know how to explain to him why she's having little fear attacks when she's alone now. It should just be loss, mourning, grief. But it's so much more than that to Emerald. The one thing that seemed to have worked in her life, for the longest at least, fell apart. Emerald didn't just lose a person, she lost her way, her purpose, and the one person she believed could keep her from ending up back on the streets. She can't figure out how to tell him that just letting her stay here and feel like she's not in a free fall is more than she could ask from anyone. ]
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[ But he places a hand on her shoulder once he's next to her so he can turn her to face the other way. ]
You can show me once we're inside, if you want to.
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Afraid one of your friends are going to see me wearing your clothes?
[ Such scandal. Her teasing doesn't quite have the teasing tone she normally does it with though. It's lackluster at best. She heads straight over to sit on his bed once they're in his room and she reaches up to undo her twin tails. ]
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[ Considering what she might show him may be sensitive. He doesn't know. But it's personal to him, and someone else seeing it, even though Emerald can definitely focus on just him, would be weird.
Once they're inside, he closes the door and opens the windows. It's a lot safer here when with company, so he's not scared of leaving his windows open. He hasn't realised yet that he doesn't seem to be afraid of being out once the sun has set. ]
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Maybe moving away from her was better for him. Another thing to try not to focus too hard on. She needs to just be glad he's feeling better, not upset that she wasn't enough to make him feel safe. She knows she had nothing to do with it.
Once he's settled in, she shows him a simple memory: it's just her in some bathroom looking in the mirror with a handful of cheap paper towels, trying to scrub at her face with dispenser hand soap to clean up. She's skinny- not just thin, skinny. There's no definition in her muscles, her shoulders are up like a cat with all it's fur raised, and her hair is long and pulled back. Her clothes are a different but similar outfit, simpler, a couple of tears but at least in tact. There's a sense of urgency attached to the memory, but more than that there's hunger. Aching, consuming, desperate hunger like a black hole in the pit of he stomach that makes her head foggy and weirdly nauseous at the same time. There's so much fear and desperation that just feels like background noise to that, and unbearable exhaustion, as if she hadn't slept for more than an hour at a time in over a week. The memory ends with some banging on the door and a voice shouting that the bathroom was for customers only. ]
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The feelings Emerald has when she shows Akashi her memory is contagious that even he begins to feel a little lightheaded and nauseated. He fights the feeling until the memory ends, and that's the only time he motions for his bed so he can sit down. ]
I'm sorry that you used to life that way. Things have changed, though. I need you to believe that.
[ Akashi isn't a mindreader, so he can't exactly tell what Emerald wanted to say when she brought up this memory. She cares about Cinder so much, though, and Cinder was the one who took her away from that life and onto something better. She may not be alive anymore, but that doesn't mean Emerald's life should end too. ]
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[ Akashi helps with that. A lot. Despite that she lost a lot just learning Cinder was gone. ] I don't know how else to show you, but I need you to understand because if you don't then eventually when I can't just stop being scared of that, it's going to make you think it's not worth it. That's even scarier, and then I get stuck in a room because I can't see the floor or anything in it to get out. I can know in my head that won't happen, but..
[ She trails off for a moment, moving to sit next to him on the bed and looking honestly kind of antsy, worried. ]
It's not that you can't help or that I'm ignoring you or I don't believe when you say stuff like that. It's something inside me that I can't stop because of that. Because that's most of my life. Does that make sense?
[ No one ever wants to actually deal with her shit. So she wants him to just understand that she has a lot of it, that it's not just normal feelings of anxiety, it's something deep in her core that he can tell her she's being stupid about a thousand times, but believing it and feeling it are different. ]
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It makes sense.
[ And there's nothing else he can really say about it. He remembered a time when Emerald placed a hand on his head and pet him. It made him feel good when she did. So he does the same thing, but he doesn't ruffle her hair. His hand just kind of stays there longer than it should.
(He's trying.) ]
That means we'll just have you live the better and healthier life longer than what you've known.
[ His words carry so much weight to them that they might seem empty. Akashi never says anything he doesn't mean, though. He's determined to make Emerald happy. If not happy, he'll settle for her not waking up being afraid of so many things. Even just alleviating some of her fears would be a victory for him. He wants to be able to change her life in some way. Not for him—if it was for him, he'd have been more aggressive about it.
Other people may see Emerald as some sort of villain, and Akashi won't ignore what wrong Emerald has done before. He focuses on the good, though. She's done good, too, and her circumstances for doing what she's done in the past weren't because it was what she wanted to do for no reason. There were reasons, and they were beyond her control. Maybe Akashi is deluded too, though, but he doesn't see anything wrong with how he perceives things, especially in this case. ]
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Emerald doesn't know whether she's a villain or not. She's done bad things. She'll joke about being a bad guy, but ultimately it isn't as if she's actively seeking to do these bad things. They're payment for being saved. Nothing comes without a cost, and this was the only price anyone was willing to offer her. Cinder is the one person who offered it, and she gave Emerald more than that. Food and clean water and shelter were what she agreed to, yes. Someone looking out for her, someone who cared whether she was there or not, someone who would teach her things and would protect her. Someone who cared about her, offered a family to her. That's what Cinder was to her.
Which is probably why Akashi confuses her so much, because he offers something similar but with no price. It doesn't make sense to her, because nothing comes without a price. She just seems to take and take from him and she doesn't know what it is she gives back, so she's decided she'll protect him and his friends at any cost. That's the best she can do, isn't it?
Emerald doesn't know if those words are empty or real. She's inclined to believe him- Akashi doesn't lie. She just doesn't know how he can promise something like that. She supposes it goes with their promises not to leave each other behind here. Promises they intend to keep but ultimately can't say how. ]
I want you to be right.
[ She leans back slowly at first then flops down on the bed all at once, pulling away from his hand atop her head only because of the intentional fall. ]
Why are you so nice to me?
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Akashi lets his hand fall on his bed, then he places it on his lap, unmoving from where he's seated. ]
We're friends, aren't we?
[ And he would do anything for his friends. He's a lot nicer to Emerald because he can see that she needs that kind of positivity in her life. That isn't to say that he plays favourites with his friends. This is just how their relationship turned out to be. He would have changed the way he treated her if she treated him differently. ]
And this is how I am to people I care about.
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[ Mercury and her relationship is certainly different, and so is hers and Cinder's. This inconsistency is hard to keep up with.
Emerald turns her head to glance at him, considering quietly for a moment.
She doesn't dislike it. ]
I'm tired.
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[ He'll maybe stay up a while longer and read something. Plus, if it gets too dark, he can wake her up. ]
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[ She does start at least moving to properly get into the bed instead of half-assed laying from where she was sitting. She doesn't really need a story, but something to distract her so she can think about anything else will help her rest. ]
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Tell me when you're ready.
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Ready when you are.
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One dark night, the Sultan's vizier, Jafar, meets with a thief who hands over half of a gold scarab beetle. Once Jafar has put the one that he has and the one that he's just received together, the beetle flies off and causes a giant tiger's head to rise from the sand. The mouth leads to the Cave of Wonders.
[ NO HE'S NOT TALKING ABOUT A PORNO ]
Jafar tries to enter the cave to retrieve a lamp, but the tiger's head speaks and says that only one may enter—one whose worth lies far within: the Diamond in the Rough. The thief tries to enter, but the tiger bites down on the thief, closing off the entrance way and instructing Jafar to seek out the Diamond in the Rough.
The following day, a street urchin named Aladdin steals a loaf of bread so he can his pet monkey can eat. [ A pause. ] I don't know why someone like him has a pet—he can barely fend for himself.
Aladdin was about to eat the bread he stole when he sees some hungry children. He decides to give it to them and leaves to what he calls his home. He tells his pet monkey that someday, things will be better and people will see him for what he really is instead of as a public menace.
The Sultan of Agrabah, on the other hand, is having problems finding a prince for Princess Jasmine to marry. He talks to Jasmine, who claims she is tired of living her life being "cooped up behind walls", which leads him to speak with Jafar.
Jafar mesmerises the Sultan with his snake staff and convinces him to give him the blue diamond ring to find Jasmine a husband. In reality, Jafar needed the ring to discover the identity of the "Diamond in the Rough".
Jasmine, who does not want to be married off, decides to run away disguised as a peasant. However, her act of giving an apple to a hungry little boy lands her in trouble with a merchant until the street rat Aladdin intervenes and leads Aladdin away just in time before she can lose a hand as payment for the fruit. At the same time, Jafar discovers the identity of the "Diamond in the Rough". It's Aladdin.
[ He stops to look at Emerald to see if she's going to interrupt him or say anything else. If she wants to ask questions, she can. ]
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