theairlock | Week 4

Right. We're in a situation we can't plan or account for until we remember further than we have, so it's just one more rigged situation.

...If the pattern holds. Someone else needs to die to remember more.

...yeah. That's likely to be exactly the case.

Then maybe we'll just have to live with incomplete memories!

And if we do, if things should unfold that some measure of our lives are truly unrecoverable, we'll find a way to deal with what we have and forge new ones if we must.

...I don't like the idea of never knowing. But I'll accept it if it means no one else here dies.

...I...

I don't...know. That's--last time, last time I could live with it cuz--cuz I didn't know, but if I know, if I know there's so much I forgot and I'm--

[He's looking a little pale, and he's shaking when he tries to bring the fire liquor back up to take another drink.]

Church--look at me. Focus on my voice, and try to concentrate.

[He reached over to put a hand on Church's wrist to lower the glass.]

I don't...want to be missing such a length of time. At all. How I became human, what any of us were or are to each other, it's just another thing driving me insane.

I'm as afraid as you are. So we--all of us--have to hold each other together as best we can until we can get a grip on this whole mess and begin to untangle it.

[He stares at the hand on his wrist for a few long moments before finally lifting his eyes to Ardyn's face. Something is familiar about this. Somehow.]

...I just. I. Isn't it bad enough we forgot twice? We forgot our own histories, and now there's this? It's a little...much.

If we could...find a way to...get them back without the killing...

If there's any way to recall what we've lost without seeing anyone else killed, then we're going to find it. I don't wish anyone else to suffer like that, and I don't want to simply spend however long I might live not knowing so much.

We're all miserable disasters, every last one of us. But we're...we're disasters together. Right?

...I asked Xander. I--asked him to ask his bosses. To give it back. He didn't argue, just...said that it wasn't his decision and that I shouldn't expect anything. But he at least talked to them. Or said something. Or sent a message. I don't know that it'll...do anything but...

You-...asked for your memories? But-...there's no way he'll just make things that easy.

He doesn't have any control of it. It's his bosses. But he passed on the message. Far as I know. I don't expect anything. I thought I'd be in for an argument, but...

A-anyway. I just...it's complicated.

...it's alright. You don't have to tell me everything--I can understand 'complicated'. Just...don't do anything careless, please.

I lost my memory before. I can't get it back. So...this is...really freaking me out. A lot.

[Ardyn drew his hand back only slightly, in favor of holding it out in a silent offer that felt...right. As if it were a familiar and practiced gesture he'd long since forgotten the reasoning behind.]

We're going to take back what we've forgotten. I don't know how, but I refuse to let whatever's transpired be lost forever. They-...our friends both living and dead deserve to be remembered, and I'll not assume such time to be lost to us.

I...

[He doesn't immediately take the offered hand. It might even seem that he won't, but, slowly, eventually, he does.]

This is all fucked up, man, it's fucked. We might be stuck in this forever. Just losing ourselves until we're all dead. How's that a way to live?

We won't be trapped like this forever. [He squeezed Church's hand lightly, a reflection of the sharp determination creeping into his voice.]

If I am right, we may have found a way out of this once. That means it can be done, and will be done if there should even be the faintest thread of possibility leading to an ending that sees us out of this place.

[Return as you were, echoed a voice in his head, a kind and noble king-!]

[The man who drew his sword against an ageless blood-drinker and stood ready to sacrifice himself for the good of others, who launched himself at Church and Nari barking the orders of a healer's expertise, who felt compulsion after compulsion to stand and help rather than shrug pain and misery off as an inevitability of life...was coming to the surface, gradually.]

[It was a king who looked at Church with gold eyes burning with determination and scowled defiantly in the face of the chance of near-certain death.]

You were someone I trusted. Someone I think I would trust even now when 'trust' itself rings as naught but a risk to my ears. So I need you with me that we might keep one another from breaking apart, long enough to see this finished and Xander's superiors paid in blood for what they've done.

I...am either not drunk enough for this or not sober enough for this. I'm not a shield. I'm not! You're putting way too much trust in me. I'm freaking out and you're a god damn stone and you want me to keep you sane?

I'm not asking you to be a Shield. I'm not...sure what I'm asking.

I'm falling apart, Church, more so every day. I can look as if I'm not, but I'm going to break and self-destruct in grand fashion if this keeps up. I nearly did, yesterday. But you and Varric and Touko-...

[Ardyn trailed off, not pulling his hand away.]

...In what memories I've had returned to me so far, when I doubted what I was, you were there to help me focus. I-...don't know if I've the strength to do the same for you. But I want to try. So that if we can't keep ourselves from snapping, maybe we can be lucky enough to keep each other from it until we find a way out of this.

I can't make any promises. Okay? I can't promise anything. I wasn't there for Soma when he needed me. I'm not...keeping up morale or making people smile or whatever the fuck people seem to think I'm capable of.

But I guess I can try.

I don't need promises. I just...I want to try to be what compulsion directs me to be. So...if you'd allow it, we can both try and see if we're able to get some kind of results.

's kinda what we're doing. By even...talking. About any of this. [He draws his hand back from Ardyn's. And decides to try his hand at a drink again. Significantly less shaky. But still with a tremble.] Try and get results.

...I suppose it is, isn't it?

[His hand didn't move at first, as if Ardyn wasn't sure what to do with it now--then he pulled back and simply interlaced his fingers on the table.]

Would it be strange if I thanked you? For...at least for not panicking, when my face almost did that thing.

Yeah? Yeah, it would be. What was I gonna do, call you a monster and stab you? Fuck no, not to my roomie. [Though he cringes at using the word.]

That's...actually more the reaction I would be used to once I remembered, frankly.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject