Memorybeans

Memorybeans
Date of Scene:	27 August 2016
Location:	Earth Court Frat House
Synopsis:	Mamoru brings Neph his jar of memories with a gentle ultimatum and a slew of solutions. Nephrite is unhappy about this.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Nephrite

---

The way it starts is this:

"So. Watermelon or some arcane designer flavor? Like bacon grass or something," Mamoru asks from behind Nephrite.

The sun is slanting through the wide arc of picture windows, painting the much less opulent (and much more lived-in) community space apartment in rose and gold tones, shading into-- well, not orange, because grey is the new orange, but the sunset's doing a fine job of making up for it.

Whatever Neph's occupied with on the projector wall is thankfully not loud enough that the black-haired prince has to raise his voice.

He's standing in the doorway right back there, and under one arm is the intimidatingly large and uncomfortably heavy jar of assorted lost-and-found marbles. Memories. Memories that look like candy. Memorybeans.

From all accounts, they're chewy and delicious.

In his other hand, he's holding up a dark green one with light yellowish speckles, just like a piece of polished nephrite.

Nephrite was right in the middle of a listless scroll through Netflix, which was neither loud nor had any particular goal. So when he hears Mamoru's voice, there is not much that he is being interrupted from.

Which is good, because when he sees the jar, all thoughts fly from his head.

For a moment, he definitely has the look of somebody who is considering flying out the nearest window. But that is silly, both because he is not particularly gifted at flying, and because it's Mamoru (not an enemy) holding a jar (not a bomb) full of jellybeans (not spiders).

It's not like he's scared of the jar. Or the little candy memories inside of it. More like he just... would prefer not to deal with all of that immediately. He's been, you know, busy. Which is why it's been patiently waiting for him to come back to it. In the back of his closet. With the door closed.

It's a perfectly normal reaction to a jar of memories that most likely involve some badness. Right?

So. He does not run. But he's not racing to try them either. "Bacon grass," he agrees. "Probably."

Mamoru watches Neph's face. He feels bad about it, he really does. Watching this is not something he wanted to do. Making Neph deal with this was not something he wanted to do, either. He wasn't going to press. It's not like Neph really would have forgotten it was there--

--they took care of that youma, after all.

Internally, he's sighing. He has ruined a day.

Externally, he gives Nephrite a cocky grin. "Bacon grass sounds disgusting." He wanders in, still holding the memorybean in his fingers, and comes around the couch to deposit himself on it next to Neph. "Glad," he says, drawing the sentence out for effect, "they're not my memories..."

He drops the bean in the jar, leans forward, and puts the jar on the coffee table in front of them both. "...or I'd be eating the entire jar even if they were Bertie Botts' vomit flavor beans. But I get that our situations are different. I get it."

Looking toward his guardian again, the prince flops back and slouches on the couch, stretching his feet out in front of him and toeing the table. Then he looks at the jar. "Like I get how Kunzite's not particularly interested in his dad. Rather the opposite, really. And I get that Jadeite and Zoisite just aren't bothering. I do. I mean, it's over, right? You get a new lease on life. We're all together. We have friends. We have the Senshi. Maybe it's not a happy ending, but that's good, because those are endings. We get lives, we get to live them. We have family, we have futures. And I know you want to concentrate on that, and I was going to just let you."

There's a but coming. There's so very a but coming.

"But," he says.

He picks at the hem of his shirt, looking at it instead of at Neph.

"The three of you are still minors. Kunzite got spotted in the paper and he's been a missing person for like five years, and he got found, and we just dealt with part of that, but he's legally twenty-five. Nobody can make him do anything he doesn't want to, except probably me. What happens when you guys get spotted? Because it's a 'when'. It's not an 'if'." Now is when he looks up and over at Neph again, slouched so far down on the couch that his chin's very nearly on his chest. "So it's something we need to actually be proactive about. Find out. Deal with. Contact, take measures, whatever. So that no one takes you away. And you're elected because the solution is literally in that jar instead of god only knows where."

There's a pause, and finally the wordiest Mamoru ever gestures at the jar without looking at it. "You still don't have to eat them. I need to look through them anyway and take out the ones that aren't yours, because I still hold out hope of getting them to the people they belong to. I could look in yours for you."

In Mamoru's defense, the ruined day was going to come sooner or later. Maybe with him or maybe without him. At least this way, Nephrite isn't doing this on his own.

Of course, that is not what he's thinking right at the moment. What he's thinking is more along the lines of "nope nope nope." The colorful nuggets of stolen memory look almost cheerful. Bright and full of possibility. Very much like the referenced Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, except instead of earwax, some of the little candies might contain a flash of heartbreak, a moment of terror.

As Mamoru plows through his uncharacteristically lengthy speech, Nephrite's position in the opposite corner of the couch grows increasingly defensive, a knee pulled up to his chest and an arm wrapped around that. But it is Mamoru's offer to look in them that brings him out again. "What? Wait, no--" he leans forward across the couch. "You can't--you really don't want to see those."

"...I'm hearing that a lot lately," Mamoru says wryly. "Don't worry. I'm rationing out my traumas."

Neph's leaning across the couch, so his prince reaches up to knuckle his head. "I'm not going to eat them. Just look in for the animated gif teaser. If I see anything that looks like the Dark Kingdom I'm staying the hell away from it."

Mamoru's blue eyes squint at Neph. "Besides, I told you. I want to get the other ones separated from them. Even if you don't want your memories, I'm sure some of those people would." Then he shoves up at Neph's shoulder, grinning. "And animal memories we can stick in a candy dish with a label that says 'eat at your own risk' and basically only warn the girls what they actually are. Can you imagine Jadeite...?"

"Have you considered," Nephrite says slowly, half-serious, "actually listening when people tell you that?"

Mamoru teases him, but for once, Nephrite's not laughing. "Even seeing that much, just... you know what's in there. You know there's going to be Beryl stuff. Hell, there might be stuff about you in there. I don't know. I do know that not even drunk-on-dark-energy me wanted to think about the kind of person I was in those memories, which means it is probably even worse than I'm imagining."

What would make Nephrite of the Dark Kingdom loathe himself so much that he wanted it out of his mind? Would it change who Nephrite is now to have that back? Would it change what Mamoru thinks of him if he sees it?

He gives the jar another wary glance. "...Yeah. You're right. They should be sorted." He runs his hand over his face, weary even though he has done nothing except sit on this couch. "If you can find their owners... that is why I saved them, after all."

Mamoru's quiet, listening without interrupting as Nephrite talks. He pushes himself up out of his slouch and turns to bring one leg up on the couch, ankle crossed under the other. He's dropped the teasing, he's dropped any jokes, because it's not working for something for Neph to latch on to in order to ride out the anxiety.

Instead, once Neph's done and is dragging his hand over his face, he reaches out and offers his own hand, palm up. The intent isn't entirely clear. If Mamoru's doing that -- hell, if Endymion did that -- it could mean 'do you want help sorting this out or calming down to sort this out', or it could mean 'let me show you' or 'show me'. It clears up pretty quickly when he says, "I wasn't in there as long as you, and I remember what came before it. But I remember everything from when I was there except for when I was hollow and got kicked out so that thing could use me as a hand puppet.

"I remember what I did. I remember what was done to me. And before that? I remember when I met you, and you were a complete douchenozzle. I remember when you mugged me and told me I was the property of the Dark Kingdom. But you know-- even though that scared the shit out of me, that is literally nothing compared to what Kunzite did to me, and did to get to me, before he woke up.

"Listen. I remember you answering my call with your heart, when we came to rescue you from your witch house. I remember you winding me up, like you used to do last time around. And--"

The prince's hand is still out, if Neph hasn't taken it yet. And if Neph hasn't taken it yet, now is when Endymion reaches to establish contact, to bridge the gap himself. It's the same as it always is when Mamoru's walls are down. Warmth. Peace. Golden sunshine, the safety of home, the feeling of bedrock steadiness and an unwavering, unconditional love. The determination and stubbornness to keep Neph close and safe and with him, just as with the others, that was what got Mamoru into the Dark Kingdom in the first place.

And an echo from after Walpurgisnacht, in the last horrible stretch of his time there -- but the echo is a spot of brief, flaring brightness, of safety and reassurance and relief in the middle of a vast emptiness that lasted a subjective forever.

The words keep coming, calm and rhythmic, patient.

"--I remember you tethering me to what was left of my sanity, reaching out to meet me halfway, talking with marker on a whiteboard in theoretical calculus. I asked you what the tensile strength of love was, and you rendered the question irrelevant by explaining quantum entanglement. Do you think that since we're out, now, that no longer applies?

"Do you think I would ever ask you -- any of you -- to do something I wasn't willing to do? You know that's never how I operated, man. It's not how I operate now." Then there's a laugh, and it's a little exasperated. "Do you think you can save me from my PTSD by sheltering me from the sight of anything that might trigger a panic attack? Because you can't, and let me tell you, it is way better to work on it in controlled conditions with support present to get me out of it if I can't get myself out."

And then Endymion's voice is apologetic. "And we need to look at at least enough of them to establish a pattern of recurring faces from your life before the Dark Kingdom, so we know who might still be looking for you. I'm willing to do this for you, Neph. You don't have to do it. But it has to be done, and if you do it, you won't have to do it alone."

Nephrite knew it was coming. That he would not even get the chance to dig in his heels and put his shields up, because Mamoru would simply bypass them anyway. He knew this was a losing argument the moment Mamoru showed up with the jar. But stubbornness is an easy thing to latch onto in the face of anxiety, and he could delay it a little. He does not take the offered hand right away even though he knows that when he does, this will stop freaking him out quite so much.

Mamoru makes the decision for him, and he doesn't resist the hand closing around his. It's a grounding force, all that golden light and love. Mamoru's walls are down, and Nephrite's are beginning to ease in that warmth. Mamoru speaks of tethers while a very real one connects them, two arms extended across the length of the couch to meet in the middle.

As Mamoru talks, Nephrite isn't looking at him. He stares at the jar of memories instead, while Mamoru's--Endymion's--voice patiently reminds him who his prince is, who they both are. And it is the mention of recurring faces that finally makes the walls drop completely. Lets Mamoru sense everything that Nephrite is feeling.

And what he won't say. That the Dark Kingdom is really only part of it. That he could have easily sorted out those ones and gone looking for the ones from before like everyone thinks he should want to do, but he never did, because--

Because every life he tried to live before this one was false, an identity he cobbled together out of cars and forged documents, dark energy and epaulettes. And all of them destroyed like tissue paper at a moment's notice. Swept away as soon as conditions changed.

And now it's just the same. Another assumed life, another made-up name. Except now he has so much to live for, so many people. His love for Mamoru and Makoto and his brothers is real even if his name isn't.

So what if he has another life out there, more real than this one? What if there are other people he used to love too, other people he also has a responsibility to?

What if he has to choose?

And all this -- does he even have the right? Mamoru can't let himself wonder anymore if he has the right to be pressuring Neph like this -- but it's not just for Neph, it's for Makoto and Zoisite and Jadeite too, and it's for him and Kunzite. He's been stalling all on his own, for how to approach it, willing to let it remain unexamined, let Neph hide from it as long as he wanted to.

But what if his other life finds him first?

Mamoru's holding all these pieces that Nephrite's let go, let him see, all broken and unhappy and tangled in his heart and his head. He's holding the tatters of identities Neph's lost, ones he's tried to build. He's looking at something--

And something matches.

Suddenly the black-haired boy is over there, literally hugging Nephrite's head, but he's eight or nine, and Neph is nine or ten, and he looks different. He looks like he did back then, and he's in his 'play clothes' -- the ones Kunzite insisted he have so they could go undercover on their trips out into the world, out beyond Elysion. The ones he loved because he could tear them, could get dirty in them, could get them dirty and scuffed and not be worried of ruining anything fine that took so much work for someone to make.

He doesn't look at all like a prince. The boy that read the stars was chosen by Endymion's mother, vetted by Kunzite -- but though his family would still be compensated for their time, if Endymion didn't connect with him or didn't like him, or if he didn't like Endymion, then he would never be Nephrite.

But this grimy kid with the brightest blue eyes in his dark face-- there was no warning, they didn't say when the Crown Prince would arrive with Kunzite to meet the brown-haired boy magician. There was no warning, but this kid's suddenly attached to him in a half-tackle, hugging his head and laughing and everything is gold and everything is connected. "Nephrite!" the kid says delightedly.

It isn't his name yet. It is his name, somehow. "You'll always be Nephrite," the answer to unasked, possibly even unthought questions and doubts, is self-assured and as serious as it is full of warm laughter.

"And," Mamoru says, no longer across the couch but right next to Nephrite with his forehead leaned against the bigger teenager's, still clasping his hand. "I'll always be Endymion. Even when I didn't know it, I still was. Those names, no one can take away from us. Those identities can't ever truly be stolen. And there's nothing saying," he says as he leans back and away, lifting his head with a smile, "that you have to stop being Mifune Wright if you really like it. But you'll never ever stop being Nephrite."

He's basically kneeling on the couch, sitting back on his heels. He still doesn't let go Neph's hand. "You won't have to choose. You were what, fourteen? You've been missing and presumed dead, and I have a lot of money and a great cover story, and if your family's still alive and they suck I'll tank 'em for you. And if they're still alive and they don't suck, I swear to god they will LOVE Mako and me, and if you let me do the talking, I'll make sure you get to stay here. Hell, wherever you're from, you might not be a minor anymore.

Still talking. Still steamrolling. He has everything planned out, doesn't he? He's been thinking about it all the months Nephrite's been pushing it out of his mind. "And believe me, it will be a lot easier to convince them of that if we go 'hey we found your kid' than if they find us-- *hiding*. But listen: you still don't have to eat them, okay? We're just going to be looking in them, identifying common elements, people you saw a lot, places. Maybe we'll find your name, maybe we'll have to look at missing persons cases from that area and the right timeframe. Then we -- or I -- can dig in, investigate. See what kind of people they are. See what lies we'll have to tell, or what truths we might be able to. And come on, it's not like you don't have access to enough money to basically take a private jet there whenever you like, if you really like them and miss them."

A pause. "Or-- take a jet here. Or we forego jets entirely and find some cheaty magic way for you to spend as much time in both places as you want. We took Metallia down, man, this shit is cake."

Of course Endymion has the right. He's had the right since the day he gave Nephrite his name.

The name that Mamoru called him by in a witch's labyrinth, awakening a part of him that had long been dormant. A lifeline to reality in a nightmare world. Even then, when even the ground beneath his feet was false, that name was real. It was a fixed point in a storm, even when he thought the name meant something else, when he thought it marked him as a member of the Dark Kingdom.

Mamoru has practical solutions already thought out for any number of outcomes. And Nephrite knows what it means for Mamoru to make that offer. To give him the choice to move--who knows where? To the other side of the world, maybe. Mamoru, who had this big apartment ready for all of them before he even knew who he was waiting for.

In a perfect reflection of that long-distant memory, Nephrite's arm suddenly comes up and wraps around Mamoru's head. "Alright. Endy wins. Let's look through the damn candy-flavored trauma bombs."

The grumbling is evident in his throat, but in the hug is only gratitude.