The living room of Mamoru's flat-- well, the part of the enormous complex of under-rearrangement-construction rooms that is the Earth Court Frat House that Mamoru has been using all along-- is not the same room as Mamoru's bedroom. Mamoru's bedroom is large, but the living room is a lot bigger. The balcony on that side opens on to both, and right now, the balcony door of Mamoru's room is locked, because there is seriously no sense tempting fate.
The last week or so, he's spent almost all his time in the palaces, but they gradually lost the ability to buffer him and were running out of their own resources, so this morning he came back--
--and no one but the Shitennou and Usagi have been around or by, because he is honestly an epic shitshow at this point. When he came back outside of the little pocket dimension, it hit like a ton of bricks, and he's had to be carried, and breathing hurts, and his skin hurts, and his head hurts, and his bones hurt, and even if painkillers take the edge off, it's only the edge and for it he's not too clear-headed.
That's why while Kunzite is texting he's trying to get up from his bed at approximately one mile per day, hands not opening all the way; that's why he's gritting out, "Kyou spear-- know how bad. Moon once. Right through. Took everything. Still doctor. Help Dai."
And then there are suddenly A LOT of voices in the living room.
For a moment, it feels like maybe she's drowning in cotton candy. Or jumped into a big vat of flower petals. Or was thrown through time and space only to arrive at a completely different location than the one she was in two seconds ago.
Momo only has one reaction to teleportation:
DO! NOT! WANT!
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The closest person not currently bleeding out is Jupiter. And Momo's like a cat who enjoys to seek higher ground when terrified anyway.
"WHAT THE WHATTY WHAT! We were! And! Here? WHAT?!"
In the next breath, she is no longer visibly freaking out. "Okay, I may be crazy, but that right there just now is frikkin insane."
Kunzite's appearance is, at the moment, oddly jarring -- already in uniform, cape and all, but still tapping out messages on a distinctly modern phone. His eyes flicker sidewise to Mamoru, and he says with that flat pragmatism that generally gets a certain two-word response from his prince, "You won't help him by becoming a third patient."
And then there are voices. And he breaks off a text midway and sends a followup, direct.
'Why?' Fiore asks her, while Sailor Jupiter presses the torn half of Jadeite's cape to his terrible wound and physically wills him to live.
He's attacked her, attacked Usagi, attacked the very planet they live on. His Xenian flowers are killing the planet by degrees; the silent screaming of the Earth's trees and greenery is a background noise she cannot escape, and still she stubbornly works to try to save him. Why?
Because he was Mamoru's friend. Because it's not his fault that a parasite from beyond the stars has taken him as its host to use to kill the world. Because he's been wrong about the Earth, about everyone. Because there is stilla chance he could be saved--
What Sailor Jupiter actually says is, "Because--" and then flower petals are everywhere and the world lurches and suddenly they're in a very familiar apartment getting green blood all over the carpet and the girl she still doesn't know is clinging to her shoulders having a conniption.
"Hey whoa calm down--" She can't let up the pressure on Fiore's wound; her head just kind of aggle-aggle-aggles a little from the force of Momo's freaking out, until the momentary panic has passed and the girl mercifully seems to settle herself.
Familiar voices from the other room. She can't distinguish the words, but the tone and cadence of Kunzite's voice at least is unmistakeable. Jupiter's voice rises to carry. "A little help here?"
Daisuke Hansuke is good at exactly two things. Healing and Teleporting. So that's what happens when he's told he's needed and people are /down/. He doesn't transform all the way- he just gets his staff out--- and then uses it's power to focuse and teleport to!-----
Mamoru Chiba's balcony in a purple flash. He pushes the door open in an honest hurry as he frowns and looks around in a huff. He looks at... an apparently very hurt Fiore and Jupiter and a girl he doesn't know. He blinks.
Jupiter seems to not be punching Fiore, but rather helping him so this is hilarously off looking to him because the last time he saw Fiore he was threating to kill all of Usagi's friends.
"Jupiter, Kunzite texted me. What is going on!? Where are they!?" he calls out. He has priorities right now. Jupiter seems up and coherent. Fiore seems to be bleeding. Momo is flustering about.
"Does /he/ need help?" he asks Jupiter. He presses his teeth together. He's not confused but he seems hesitant about this now.
Daisuke has a bad feeling about this.
*/You IDIOT! What have you done -- teleported yourself in the middle of all your enemies, in the very base of their power? Like THIS?!/*
(...the carpet is soft, and everything is noisy around him, it would be so easy to escape the pain, slip away from the monster in his mind...)
*/Have you forgotten about the asteroid? I could have -- we could have healed there. Where the air doesn't actively kill you. Where you know we have power. Are you fool enough to let some shallow kindness sway your resolve?/*
(...the asteroid is a terrible place, why would he ever want to go there again...)
*/It's no wonder you couldn't get Mamoru back. You're weak. Naive and weak. Without me, you are NOTHING./*
(...without her, none of this ever would have happened...)
Fiore is only barely conscious now, his thoughts fleeting and hard to pin down. Even with the aid of the strangers, he can feel his life slipping away. Even with Mamoru so close, he may still die alone.
With a herculean effort, he forces his mouth open one more time, taking a shuddering breath that rattles in his throat.
"Mamoru...where are you?" he asks, barely audible above the chaos around him. "Please...I don't want...to die."
"Dammit, Kaz," Mamoru grits out, especially since now Makoto's calling for help. He doesn't lie back down, though.
He shuts his eyes, sitting on the edge of his bed. Fiore is in his apartment. He can't see out there, but that's what's going on. That's the topic at hand and that's Jupiter's voice. And besides, this is his apartment, and that's Fiore and the Xenian. He can tell. Fiore is in his apartment. All the trouble they went to to keep him from finding out where Mamoru lived, and...
...and Fiore is dying and he came here.
If Mamoru's eyelashes are wet, it's obviously a physiological reaction to the vast amounts of frustration he's having even trying to think straight, to move, to communicate his scattering thoughts. Jupiter can hear the screaming of the Earth; she knows now what's been in his head for well over a month now. She knows how much pain the planet is in.
And then he hears the thready voice from the middle of everything, past Daisuke arriving, past Momo flustering, and--
He holds his umbrella over the head of the green little boy on the ground, curled up and sobbing; he crouches down and puts his hand to his head, pushing back the bright long hair from the boy's elfin face and pointed ears, where the rain had plastered it. And the warmth he shares, and the understanding he gains, are both real and true. Someone like him. All alone, completely lost, and thinking no one would ever find him or care, hurting. Feeling like he's going to die, and maybe he should, because what in the heavens is he for?
Padding back to the hospital, carefully supporting the other little boy and half-dragging him, holding the umbrella over them both, barefoot to prevent his hospital slippers squelching, the boy the doctors called Mamoru-kun brings Fiore in out of the cold rain. For the rest of the night, he keeps him warm, curled up under his own blankets. Not alone.
There's a crackling sound that Kunzite knows too well, and Prince Endymion's sitting on the edge of the bed. The armor's too heavy. There's a fearful clattering as Endymion just uses a dagger to cut the leather straps, clumsily, and the plates fall to the floorboards. He shrugs out of his cape and epaulets, and he looks sick, but he looks coherent, and he's moving with more surety, and more strength. Not a lot more, but enough to pull himself to his feet. His expression is grim and he's not paying attention to the dampness on his face, and he staggers for a second before bracing against Kunzite.
"I'm already a patient," he says in a low, bitter voice, and then it clears a little, sounds apologetic but firm. "So help me be less of one for ten damn minutes." He calls out haltingly, "Hang in there, Fiore. Asclepius, please-- please help him. We can save him together. I know we can."
Momo finally slides off Jupiter's back, dusting herself and the senshi off.
While she's doing this, Dog's sniffing about, feeling a touch antsy about being in a Human Dwelling. However, so does the bleeding SortaHuman. He trots behind the hurt one and lies down, head resting on whatever bit he can without getting jostled and Bad Boyed.
Another new person! She's meeting a lot of them lately. The new guy says a name that sends her giddy. "Not-Nii-San-kun is here?!" She's perked up and looking around!
"He's pretty!" That wasn't your inside voice.
Momo stops her search to look at the new guy. Then she looks down at the green guy. And back and forth. "I'm...pretty sure he isn't some avant guard art thingy, and I'm pretty sure he's not a street performer I woulda seen him, and he fought Kyou-nee, so my guess is yes."
And then things are awkward, because the boy from the other day really is a prince and also looks ten shades of poopy. "I needa pee."
This is announced to everyone as she searches for a bathroom.
Not to pee in! To hide in!
"He's a victim too, as much as anyone." Jupiter's voice follows Endymion's, short and sharp with frustration. "That - flower thing is controlling him and I can't get it off him while I'm busy holding his insides in, but we don't let someone die just because he had the stupidly bad luck to get mind-controlled by a space parasite so please do something."
She'll apologize for snapping at him later. Maybe.
Daisuke Hansuke places his teeth even harder together as Mamoru talks from the bedroom then at Jupiter. He doesn't take offense to being snapped at. There's more important things to worry about- Daisuke works the front desk of a doctor's office, he's been snapped at before by his father's patients.
That is to say, there's seriously no need to apologize water.
He takes a deep breath and holds his staff out in front of him as he glows that slight purple aura---and then begins channeling that healing purple energy into Fiore without a second word. Two people asked him. Two people he trusts. So he has to trust this isn't a horrible idea that will end with a revitalized Fiore murdering everyone.
He reopens his eyes as he watches Momo flitter off in search of a bathroom as his eyes look backdown at Fiore.
This'll take a few moments.
"I'll do my best." he finally says when he's underway. Fiore is pretty bad. He can't promise his magic will work on alien bodies, either-- so all he can do is his best right now.
The phone's dropped on the bed's edge beside Mamoru, but Mamoru's already changing. That gives Kunzite a moment's pause. Only a moment's. The change doesn't give his prince enough strength for his liking.
"I meant," he says to Endymion, low under the louder voices from the other room, "not to try to stand." The next couple of seconds are unfortunately routine, as of late --
Which is why when the two of them appear, Kunzite is bodily carrying Endymion. Again. He scans the room in a glance, then steps across to kneel down opposite Jupiter and settle the prince on the floor. Half-dying boy next to dying one. Easy reach for the empath-healer, even if Kunzite is not letting physical contact lapse. Not for a moment.
"Thank you," he says across to Jupiter. "And you, Asclepius. Hello, Momo. Please don't set anything on fire. Jadeite. Kyouko. Where are they?"
"Sorry," mumbles Endymion, and being carried also gives him a couple of seconds to recover from standing up and fussing with getting his armor off. He also wipes his face off on the back of his sleeve.
As Asclepius' purple glow envelops Fiore and Jupiter's hands are in the process of being allowed to change tasks from 'very direct pressure', Kunzite is setting him down and not letting go. So: Endymion leans a little, briefly touching the back of Makoto's hands and glancing up at her to meet green eyes with grateful blue, then moves Jadeite's torn cloak off the gaping wound through Fiore's midsection. And his hands both go to touch it directly, and gold joins with the purple.
He hopes Momo knows where Kyouko and Jadeite are. But she apparently has to pee.
He has some seriously alien anatomy and physiology to sort through at the moment, and his eyes close. "Okay," he says in a low murmur. "Asc, I need you to keep him stable. Just keep his systems moving, like life support. I vaguely remember what goes where and I can see where that's wrong, but his body remembers better, so we're going to be coaxing it to regrow, mostly. Once we get him running I'll replace what I can of your energy, so just-- try not to pass out."
The breath rushes out of Sailor Jupiter in relief as Asceplius sets about his work, as Kunzite brings Endymion to Fiore's side and the healing starts. The damage is bad and it won't be easily fixed, but at least now it's actual healers working on Fiore and not just her stopgap efforts holding him back from the edge of death.
Soon, she can dare to lift her hands from the wound without the alien immediately bleeding out all over Mamoru's carpet. Once she can do that, she begins to edge out of the way, giving the two space. A bit of it, anyway. She's not getting entirely out of the way just yet - instead, now that she's no longer focused wholly on keeping Fiore alive, Jupiter's attention settles on the flower on Fiore's chest.
The flower with the figure of a tiny alien-looking woman emerging from its center, glaring death at everyone. The flower that's controlling Mamoru's friend, the flower that's killing the planet.
They can put an end to this invasion right now. Sailor Jupiter reaches to grasp the flower and lift it from Fiore's chest, her glove still soaked green with his blood.
Momo's not even out of the room when Kunzite says her name.
Flutter!
And then he asks the question...
"Oh no."
She frantically searches the living room.
No Kyou-nee!
Her hands fly over her pockets and dig through her purse.
"Oh no. She's gonna kill me!"
She pulls out the soul gem. "Oh maaaaan, I don't like being dead, it's so boring!"
She looks up at Kunzite. "What if I make it pretty? Think she'll kill me then? You got any glitter? No, you're right, sequins would be better."
Dog lifts his head from Fiore's knee and gives a soft 'woof.'
Momo folds her arms across her chest and grumps. "You be quiet."
She slumps in a comfy chair, more than likely getting street rat cooties all over the place.
Daisuke Hansuke eyes glance over to Mamoru--- Endymion? It doesn't matter. He's both in his head. Still, he nods and does as asked, keeping that purple energy flowing, letting it encompass and keep Fiore (hopefully) alive. He keeps it flowing steady--- not too much, not too little--- because if he forces everything he has in-- well he's going to get tired. Then he's gonna passout if that happens.
"Alright." he says to Endymion. He'd make noises about Mamoru helping in his apparent state , but well.
Asclepius might not be able to do this by himself anyways. Besides. Mamoru knows things helpful it sounds.
"I'll follow your lead then. Let me know when to let up or down. Don't worry about me passing out. This is more important right now." he says.
His tone is serious and frank- but that's a given.
The words of Momo seem to fly in one ear and out the other right now for him. He's concentrating.
His eyes trace to Jupiter. What's exactly going on there.
Kunzite's first priority is keeping in contact with Endymion. His second, watching Fiore and the flower, though Jupiter has the latter literally in hand. His third, keeping out of Asclepius' way, largely by staying still.
Momo will have to settle for fourth, which is why his tone is a little distracted. "Don't glitter your sister. She'd disapprove, and the only person who owns sequins around here holds grudges."
(He remembers the first time he saw those eyes. The first eyes of any living being he'd ever seen. The first thing he'd seen at all beside the cold void of space. It could have been anyone that found him there -- one of the many terrible humans on the planet, some kind of wild animal, or worse, someone who would not think him worth a moment of their time.
But it wasn't. Out of all the people on Earth, he met Mamoru, the only little boy who could possibly feel the same way he does.
And it is Mamoru who returns to his aid once more.)
Suddenly, everything is warm again, the edges of his vision brightened by light, color returning to the world in shades as the pain finally abates. Mamoru's hand is on him, and the eyes that meet his are not those that attacked him those weeks ago, not the eyes that reject him and the promise they made to each other. They are deep blue, soft -- tired, yes, but kind -- they are the eyes that tell him he still has a friend, no matter what he's done, no matter what has happened.
For the first time in what may be literal years, the light from Fiore's smile reaches his eyes. He nestles his head against his friend's knee, curling up in the warmth that surrounds him on all sides. Perhaps...perhaps everything will be alright --
Then a well-intentioned glove reaches to pull the flower from his chest, and the illusion is broken by the most intense pain he has felt in his life. The life that has included nearly burning up in Earth's atmosphere and being gutted -- twice -- by a spear.
Fiore *screams,* the light surrounding him cut off by a surge of black magic from his chest, biting and sparking at those who had laid their hands on him. The Xenian is perhaps an inch or so above his chest, grasped in Jupiter's hand -- but he is not free of it. Perhaps he never will be.
For roots of black curl down from the base of the flower, shimmering purple with her power, so that they can be seen under the pale green of Fiore's skin. They snake under his shirt, under his muscle, deep within his being, his chest molded around the intrusion like bark grown around a parasite. Around his heart in a chokehold, the Xenian's roots pulse and threaten.
If it were ever that easy to free Mamoru's friend, that time has long since passed.
Momo jumps, nearly toppling the chair over. For a moment she's frozen in place.
She's heard a scream like that before.
Twice.
Tomorrow, or even in five minutes, she'll be super embarrassed that she's run from the apartment, not even bothering to shut the front door as she runs. Maybe even more embarrassed that she's scared and maybe even crying a little.
Fortunately, she'll have Dog to cry into. The canine's hot on her feet.
--and Endymion's smiling back at Fiore, ignoring the flower; everything might be all right -- Jupiter can get that thing off him, and look, it's really him in there, he's really him; he can feel it's really him, and even as he and Asclepius heal his body, Mamoru's heart is open, giving Fiore that sense of home that all his Shitennou had missed so badly they were half-mad from it, giving him that golden safety...
And he's in so deep. Daisuke is Fiore's life support; Mamoru is helping him rebuild the alien boy from the inside out, and his hands and his heart and his mind are all committed to this--
--and when everything goes wrong, it takes Endymion right along with it. The black magic, the pain backlash, the utter wrongness on every level, is a shockwave that seizes the prince up and passes through his empathy, magnified; he tries to shut the gates, but Kunzite is holding on to him and how is he even trying to do anything when everything is on fire and he has no body and pieces of himself have been replaced by vines and clay and shadow and attar and dark energy--?
For a moment, there's hope there....
Then Jupiter tries to yank that thing. Then there's a sparkling blast of dark energy. He wasn't touching that- but he was close. He backs up a moment and that purple haze begins to falter-- and then they spark off into nothing and there's a snap back into Daisuke's head of... something as he winces and tightens his grip around that staff.
He has to suddenly throw the staff down-- straight up now to keep himself steady as he frowns sudden and hard-like. What was that?
He puts a hand to his forehead. "Nrg---w--what the heck was that..." he says as he suddenly lets himself fall backwards when he's sure he can fall safetly. He's still gripping onto his staff.
Yeah he has one hell of a headache suddenly when that was shunted off. Probably the effectes of putting all his concentration into it then having it shunt back. Everything's really blurry. That's just great.
There is a split second in which Kunzite is faced with a terrible choice.
In that moment, Jupiter still has the flower in her hand. He could call his sword and try to sever those roots -- but his sword has no virtue of its own, and would be insufficient. He could call borrowed power, and perhaps destroy the flower with it, maybe even without hurting the others -- but doing so would leave those black roots within Fiore.
He could reach out with his power and drain the black magic around the boy. Part of him is almost willing to. He knows too well what that kind of control feels like; he knows Kyouko's solutions to it, and if this body never experienced them, the memory is still there, blood and bone. But doing that would leave him corrupted, and Usagi isn't here to solve the problem; worse, if the flower's influence went with the energy, it would grant the thing far more direct access to part of the world.
Instead --
It's not something he's tried before, interlocking himself and perhaps his magic with Endymion's power still more deeply, reaching for something in the boy's own mind and trying to steal it the way he steals energy. It's not something he would try in other circumstances; they've discussed it and come away with a sharp decision made on Mamoru's part, an edged warning. But this once. The memories that this is bringing to the fore are ones Kunzite knows, ones he lived through every detail of. Those are his shadows Mamoru remembers. This is his fault.
"Mamoru. Hold on." Name first, lest Jupiter think he's speaking to her even as she's letting go of the flower in horror. "Fiore still needs you --"
He does not try to block all of it. Endymion needs to be able to see what's real. And even memories like that are still Endymion's own memories.
But he tries to take those visions of the past, to steal them into himself, or failing that to occupy them so fully that they can't possibly swallow Mamoru in the fire and the chaos and the dark.
It's hard to say whether it's in combination with the pain from earlier, or whether this alone would have been enough, but either way, Fiore can take no more. After several moments of pain like fire, pain like lightning, pain like death come to wrench his heart from his chest, there is nothing more his body can do -- it shuts down with terrifying abruptness, a marionette falling when its strings are cut. His eyes are the eyes of the dead, half-lidded and empty. The scream that had threatened to shatter glass falls silent after a final, choked breath.
But the Xenian planted in his heart knows no silence.
Flung backward by the surge of dark energy, there is no one to stop the alien's unconscious body from rising in the air, suspended by the flower's roots, glowing with the kind of light that shouldn't exist on any spectrum. Petals, rotted and withered now, appear in the air and whip themselves into a gale, yet another barrier between her hostage and those who would save him. A final reminder of their futility.
"Thank you for healing this poor boy," the Xenian says. Her voice is soft, almost sultry -- dripping with venom all the same, echoing off the walls and furniture of the Earth Court's mortal home. "I'll be sure to think of you when we crush this world to dust."
There's a sound like wood creaking and bending, like a plant growing much too quickly, and suddenly there are more roots weaving themselves in and out of Fiore's gut, closing what's left of the wound for all to see. There is nothing they can give him that she cannot replicate; there is no freeing Fiore, because the Xenian is now his very flesh and blood.
"Goodbye. Enjoy this planet's remaining days -- it does not have many."
The cyclone of petals collapses inward, and when the shockwave has passed, nothing remains of Fiore but his blood upon the carpet and the horrid memory of the monster that has burrowed itself in his heart.
Daisuke Hansuke eyes come back into focus just in enough time to see horrid vines and wood finish up 'fixing' Fiore and he can hear the parasite's voice and he wants to yell out at it, but in his current confusion and bleared state thanks to the healing feedback, it'd probably come out garbled and in the wrong order, instead all he does is sort of gravely listen as he holds his forehead with a big migraine now as feels the wind and petals brush upon him as Fiore teleports away again.
Daisuke Hansuke has to think for a few moments before he utters the next words, very hard. "Mamoru... is he going to be okay? Nrg--need a second..." he says as he begins to drag himself up with his staff to his feet, if shakingly.
"Kunzite, if there's anything I can do here, please guide me. I dunno what just happened, but it seemed to hit Mamoru hard like a sack of bricks in a steel netting." he mutters.
Luckily, Daisuke wasn't actually touching Fiore. Just sending that purple aura in.
The Xenian is committing visible body horror, Daisuke's head is ringing, Jupiter-- who had been at the epicentre of the black magic explosion and literally hanging on to the bomb-- is flung sideways and unconscious, Kunzite is talking to the empty blue eyes of a prince frozen in the horror of memories that sent him catatonic the first time, and Fiore's eyes are as dead and empty as his...
...and then the Xenian is gone, her prey and her hostage stolen away with her once more.
The work Kunzite does in Endymion's mind is new and uncertain but swift, the least potentially far-reachingly awful option of a tetralemma. It's his own shadows now, untainted by dark energy, that replace the roiling hell of prolonged bodiless death; it's his clear and immediate focus, his steadiness through pain and horror, that lock in and provide a structure for Mamoru to cling to and accept that interlacing of energy and will, to climb up and out of what's dead and gone.
He comes to while Daisuke's speaking, and the first evidence is a great gasping sob; the second evidence is his hands locking into fists in Kunzite's jacket: fists that will have to be pried off, joints locked in seized pain. Everything is screaming, but bit by bit, he's methodically filtering it out, exhausted and horrified and grieving, but conscious and determined.
And that gasping sob is the only answer Daisuke's question receives. Surely Kunzite has a list of priorities to revise in the plant-possessed boy's sudden and horrible absence; surely he has a list of tasks to accomplish. (Tending to Jupiter? Finding Jadeite and Kyouko? Chasing Momo to keep track of the extra soul gem she carries? Slicing carpet free and taking it and the blood it carries to Mercury? There are so very many possibilities.) Surely that's somewhere.
But he went further than only lending Mamoru focus, this time. He moved to intercept something and take it on himself --
Gray eyes stare silently, focused for the moment on nothing in the room; Kunzite neither moves nor speaks, nor shows any sign of hearing.
Daisuke Hansuke hears a sob from Mamoru. The good thing. Mamoru is now responsive. The bad thing. It's a /sob/. Daisuke can really only imagine what Mamoru saw in there- he can't see such things himself- but all he can do is sort of look on, grimly. Healing auras only go so far and they can't heal /this/ or help /this/.
All he can do is lean down and frown. He doesn't /dare/ touch Mamoru right now. He remembers the warning. Now's not the time to get a jolt of 'whatever the fuck this is.'
He does however look at Kunzite now.
Now he's being catatonic and unresponsive. Well. That's entirely not good. What he hell did Kunzite /do/!?
"Kunzite...?"
He looks down back to Mamoru with wider worried eyes. What the hell. What does he /do/ here. He's not freaking out. Yet. At least.
Nothing got done by freaking out, her thinks. Nothing good can come of a panic attack right now.
But lord is he going to have one before the night's over probably.
So it's Mamoru who can think-- it's Mamoru who can hear-- it's Mamoru who pulls his hand, still curled into a clawed fist, from Kunzite's shirt and brings it up to the older boy's face. "Don't. Let. Go," he hitches through his teeth.
And it's Mamoru who says after another second, "Jupiter first. Then. Find Momo. Get soul gem. Bring them here. Jadeite will bring Kyouko. Go do. Can't talk."
His breathing is uneven, his everything is screaming in pain, he's dutifully blocking himself off from the Earth and walling himself up; he's sending a reassurance to Usagi; he's telling Jadeite to come here; he's going radio silent to focus on diving back into the morass of December 11th, 2015.
And above the edge of the abyss, a small brown hand holds insistently tightly to a much larger one.
Out on the balcony in the night, a modern-day prince of ritual and spirit shares the gold that binds his broken shards together, seams brilliant and glittering, and lays out the web of connections that that gold, spread out and branching like the roots of a tree or the tributaries of a river or the patterns of traffic in cities and powerlines, binds them all together in a circle that will be unbroken as long as any of them has will.
Save me so I can save you.
Again and again.