He doesn’t want to talk about it. The fact that Alex doesn’t remember makes everything a thousand times worse: not only does Memo have to relive the situation, but he has to verbally explain it, too.

It’s bad enough it lives in his head. Speaking it makes it even more real.

He doesn’t say anything. He’s nauseous and squeezing his eyes shut so tight they hurt.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

He can’t focus. He tries to live there, in that space; in the feeling of Alex’s palms, in his voice. In the bedroom. Safe. Warm.

Undeserving. Unwarranted.

He falls in the spaces between.

He’d tried to make it better. He’d tried to sacrifice himself so other people got a chance to live. But it hadn’t been out of the goodness of his heart. He did it because--

He didn’t realize he was speaking out loud.

“--I was tired and everything good had been stripped away from me and I was so tired, I didn’t want to be alive any more but I tried-- I tried to go too but Kaida wouldn’t let me and her stupid snake bit my arm!”

He’s fully crying, now, messy toddler tears of too much emotion and nowhere to go with it.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

Alex holds him close and he can do little more than sob into the crook of his neck, into his shoulder.

“Sh-she should have just let me die. I wanted to go with you..”

And maybe if he’d been there Alex wouldn’t have gotten so hurt. Maybe Memo could’ve started the atonement process early. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

He doesn’t know what Alex is talking about, not out of ignorance but out of the sheer plethora of horrible things which had occurred. It could be any instance, any point on the timeline, and it would’ve been something horrible.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, wrapping his arms around Alex like he could hold him there forever, terrified he was going to leave, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Alex could’ve personally pushed him into the death-beam reset-light and Memo would still love him.

“I said and did the most horrible things to you. I’m so sorry.”

He wanted to say he hadn't meant it, but he had. In that terrible world where he was stripped from his most basic self. All the hatred and negativity he’d been spewing had been personal and real.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He clings and rocks and cries. He can't be safe unless he forgives himself, and he doesn't and he never will.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

“Th-that makes it worse,” he says, a mixture of a sob and an exhale, pulling back enough to see Alex’s face, to show his own, redenned and wet and tear-stained. “That makes it worse because I can’t just-- you can’t properly be mad at me and I can’t-- I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen!”

Didn't Alex see? He had to beat himself up about it. Because no one else would, except maybe Kaida Adachi, but she wasn't here, was she? Not acknowledging it... felt like taking advantage, like one would of the blind or the deaf. It felt like abandonment. But it also hurt too much to put into words.

“I-- I don’t--,”

He sniffs, miserable.

I don’t know if I want to know is what he wants to say, but what comes out is, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to tell me. What happened. If it’s too much.”

Like this had been.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

His petulance wants him to say yes, point blank-- yes, he will dwell on it forever. Yes, this latent feeling of misery is just what he deserves. But he bites back the knee-jerk response and quiets, slightly, under Alex’s stern gaze.

“I… don’t know what to do,” he admits, and its the truth, “I feel like… if I just move on I’m… doing you a disservice. I’m taking advantage of the gaps in your memory. I feel like I owe it to you to remember.”

That was the crux of the issue. If Alex could just properly get mad at him, yell at him, scold him, then forgive him, it would burn away like a cleansing fire. But he couldn’t. So Memo had to carry it like his own cross, his own penance.

Something hardens in his own eyes.

“I… should have been with you. I should have made sure-- you were blind, you were… I should have protected you better. So, yes. Tell me. Tell me what I failed to keep you safe from.”

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov