Oh, hell.
Why didn’t he
kick the manlet in the gut, why’d he choose to shove him?!
(Of course he’d forgotten that Memo was more athletic than he was, limp noodle incarnate.)
“How do you know who I am,” were the next words out of his mouth, the anger still simmering beneath the surface. The last time he’d been
properly angry was when—wait,
when exactly?
He couldn’t remember!All he was aware of was the fact that he rarely got angry, but when he
did, he got angry with a good fucking
reason.
“Well, I don’t know what’s causing me to act up like this! I don’t know your name, yet you know me, what in the absolute fuck—” he growled, the anger simmering past endurance. He was like a kettle, fit to burst, blackened at this point.
Where were all these
emotions suddenly coming from? What the hell?!
“Well, if you have a big piece of yourself missing, mister I-think-it’s-alright-to-yell-at-a-lady, news flash, I don’t have my fucking heart inside my chest! How am I even alive, talking to you like this?! There’s a big, gaping, empty thing right here, I know you can see it—” he went on, inhaling sharply through his nose as he turned his sightless stare towards the approaching…
Oh no.
Oh he absolutely did
not just say that to the young lady (Kaida).
(Normally, Alexei would be fucking
terrified of death, mortality, senescence, the whole ten yards you name it. But clearly, due to him missing a very
huge something important, that fear had also disappeared with the memories that he was internally struggling to piece together.)
“Again, take him, the ungrateful jackass, and get out of here! Or do I have to—” he trailed off, the eyeless void staring at Kaida’s form, who was trying to grab the other man and pull him out.
It was all…or nothing at this point.
Instinct was driving his other hand to search through the pockets of his jacket again, and after blindly finding the other two shrunken-down Pokéballs with him, he rummaged some more—and pulled something out.
A purple-tipped feather.
The
normal Alexei would only use these in absolutely dire situations—life or death ones—but for the first time, he
wanted to be selfish. He could feel the stem of the feather curling in the fingers of his left hand as he spun it carefully, holding onto the tip as tightly as possible in case the other two got ideas of trying to snatch it out of his hands.
(It
was entirely possible. Thankfully he had the height advantage over the two, considering he was just over six feet tall.)
The anger laced with irony is heavy on his next few words.
“Make him remember. Tell him, the ass… that he has to remember. Slap him if you have to,” he continued her way, shaking himself free from her hold before turning his attention to—
The same sightless void turned back to face the
other silhouette that was holding him at arm’s length, angry over such a little thing, over what he was trying to do—what he was
about to do.
“I don’t know why, despite this strange feeling rising up inside me, most of me wants to hit you. But something, I don’t know what the hell-ass what, is stopping me from doing it.”A deep breath, a hiss released through gritted teeth.
“A tiny little part of me doesn’t want to hit you. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know where this is all coming from! What are these things? Just—assaulting me all of a sudden from inside, you crazy little shit—not you, young miss—what—are—these—emotions—and where—are—they—coming—from?!”What the brain forgets, the heart (or in his case, the
lack of one) remembers.
He felt like a dam burst open; the emotions that had been skipped over from the point when his memories had been erased left behind inside him erupting all at once. It was, basically, causing his brain to malfunction like an overheating computer tower.
He doesn’t realize that he’s crying,
again, as he says the next words.
“You jackass,” he hissed in the manlet’s direction,
“…you have to remember. I don’t know what’s making me say that to you specifically, but you. have. to. fucking. remember!”Why did it hurt?
Why did these—these emotions
hurt him so?
Anger, annoyance, sadness, but nothing to anchor them to—no memories to associate them with, no nothing, just. Emotions. Everything raw inside him, exploding out all at once like a volcano.
“If you know who I am, if you really, honestly, absolutely know me, then you have to remember. That promise.
I don’t know why a promise,
I just know it’s a fucking promise.
Whatever it is.”The pain inside was eating him alive, but he
couldn’t comprehend why. He didn’t understand
any of this, it made his head hurt so much, a brief flash of clarity made its way through.
(Maybe it was the only point of clarity he would ever remember of this entire debacle post-memory loss during the entire occurrence that happened here, in the unknown space between reality and digitality.)
The next words came out unbelievably quiet, soft, even for someone like him who was ready to slap him for shouting at their female companion.
“Even if we’re far apart, you promised me… that you would find me. No matter what happened. Even if it was the end of days, the end of the world, at the edge of…of everything.”(How ironic that they all were facing a potential ‘end of days’ scenario.)
The anger from earlier had evaporated, to be replaced with an aching, seemingly endless sadness that reared its ugly head from deep inside him. Just—these
emotions, why were they all coursing through him, at this very moment?
What was making him act like this?
What was up with the emotions just coming in one after another, with no reason whatsoever?! Why—why did the urge to suddenly kiss the other man—
Never mind if Kaida was there, he held onto the feather with his fingers as he reached for the angry manlet’s face—not to strike the other because of how he’d behaved around a young woman—but to leave the softest, most tender show of affection only one who was deeply, madly
in like in love with another would give.
What was going on, was this affection suddenly overriding his terror, the fear—before he broke the kiss off with the next words:
“I’m sorry. I really am.”With a flick of his left hand, he released the feather; pointing the purple end specifically at the two and bracing himself for the burst of air that would come forth and hopefully shove them both
away from the pillar of light he was standing in.
“Find me. I believe…only you can do that…Memo.”
• error 404: Alexei.exe has crashed,
again• what are these
emotions suddenly surfacing? Why can’t he associate any—oh that’s right, he can’t remember
anything! (but the emotions were all left behind)
• they have a bit of a shouting match—more like, 2.0!Alex throws a tirade at uncaring!Memo’s direction
• the various emotions suddenly surfacing from out of nowhere are causing him to act irrationally, brain overheat, cannot compute, what are all these things?!
•
a brief moment of clarity breaks through the confusion• 2.0!Alex says something that would maybe,
just maybe, have the manlet
remember• while Alex rarely shows affection in public, he breaks all tradition and leaves the other with that promise, tied to the emotion of
love, before—
• using
another feather to blast
both Memo and Kaida
away from the portal of light
• total feather usage this time:
one•
‘find me.’
[break][break]
[break]
