[open] you know what your problem is?

[baltimores]

WHO: Amos, any Kenoma
WHAT: Amos rewards himself for being cured of Innocence by going on a depression bender.
WHERE: Throughout Achamoth
WHEN: Towards the end of/after the event
WARNINGS: Depression, self-loathing, a little suicidal ideation, lots of drinking, references to brothels, discussion of domestic violence/sexual assault/prostitution/child prostitution; will update as necessary



[ So, this sucks.

Getting out of Venera as soon as possible had been the only thing on Amos' mind once Misa had forced him out of Innocence's grip. That thing had exploited his vulnerabilities, manipulated him, turned him into a puppet to spread its nonsensical, fucked up somewhat understandable agenda, and he needed to leave immediately, before he fell victim to it again.

His legacy's shrine is one of the closest to Achamoth. Easy.

He had to swim across a lake and spend days walking across farmland in waterlogged boots before he actually made it back to the city. Less easy.

Though for all of the personal discomfort and frustration that brought with it, it was readily ignored by spending that time mentally reviewing everything he did while he was fucked in the head, now that he could with proper context. All of the harm he'd caused, all of the ways he'd refused to listen to reason, being reminded of the fact that all he's really good for is ruining other people's lives. Turns out that sucks.

Then there's the fact that ever since an initial mishap during one of his first days in Achamoth, he's been careful to not go out into the city with his shard exposed — but since anything he'd used to cover it up had ended up getting destroyed in Venera, he has no choice but to subject himself to. This. When he's the last person who should be revered or admired in any way, and now he has no way to avoid it.

The first stop on Amos' list is somewhere that can get him clothed again, courtesy of I don't have any money but I am an Aion can I please just have a shirt now. All subsequent stops are, well... ]


i. so just drinking and fucking

[ Going back to the Citadel isn't even remotely on his mind, certainly not when he's got plenty of self-pity to wallow in.

Amos sticks to the seedier parts of Achamoth, weaving his way through various bars and brothels as the mood strikes him. He still doesn't have any money on him, so it's a whole lot of showing off his shard to get either free booze, comped sex, or serve as a credible IOU (and one that, to the meagre credit he has left, he'll actually fulfil once he's had the chance to get his head back on straight and reacquire finances from the Citadel). It isn't hedonism he's fully sinking into so much as I'm a bad person, I feel like shit, I'm going to do things that physically make me feel less like shit. There are worse coping mechanisms, he figures; if there actually aren't, he doesn't care.

He ignores all communion messages he feels coming through; the best anyone can hope for if they try to reach out to him directly is a tacit acknowledgment that he's still alive, combined with maybe a somewhat hazy impression of his immediate surroundings, if that latter part ends up slipping through.

That, or maybe you just so happen to run into him in some shithole dive bar or upon leaving a brothel.

Either way, there really isn't a whole lot he can do if you end up in physically the same space as him, is there. ]


ii. till they run out of one or the other

[ At some point, he actually does have to go back to the Citadel.

He's clearly worse for the wear when he finally shows back up there, rough around the edges when he finally delivers his report to Xishen — several days late, but who's counting — and then has free reign of... well, not the entire place, but the usual.

Fuck, does he need a shower. And a nap. And maybe another drink, because why the hell not. Even though he may not necessarily look it, Amos is certainly feeling better; otherwise, he wouldn't have ended up back here.

Maybe he's dishevelled, maybe he's finally had the chance to clean up; maybe he's briefly roaming the hallways, maybe he's taking advantage of having his own spacious room again. Either way, he's certainly more receptive to company, having gotten most of... that... out of his system in the city.

Though Amos isn't forgetting how easily led astray he was, all in the name of hurting people, anytime soon. That part still bothers him, but when hasn't that been a regular part of his psyche, anyway. ]


iii. wildcard

[ I'm at arii#6412 or cadiai if we need to talk specifics. ]

Comments

[baltimores]

[ He stares down at his boots as they walk, as she lets him have it. It's kind of the coward's way out, but he really doesn't know where else to look, and he's really trying to take to heart everything she's saying.

So, ] I'm sorry.

[ It comes out meek. He really doesn't have an argument against her. Fine for him is relative; he genuinely is fine, but only in the way his broken brain can digest. Stepping back from it all, it makes sense that nobody else would see it the way he does. That's par for the course; the only wonderment here is how he hasn't understood that until now.

(Because he's a bad, selfish person. That's why. He knows that.) ]

You shouldn't have had to worry. I'm sorry I made you. I just... I had to get out of there, before I started hurting people again. I should've— You could've come back with me, I should've told you that, or...

[ His voice trails off helplessly. There were alternatives, and instead he'd gone with his first instinct, which was to threaten her and mean it. And look where that got him, got the both of them. ]

I'll try not to do it again.

[ That's really all he's got, that weak little offer he can't even guarantee. That's the best he can do. It feels worse than everything else he's put himself through over the past several days. ]

[lifespanned]

[ She hears the meekness in his voice, the aimlessness to his words. Misa is sure he's all out of sorts - what with coming here straight from Venera, and being under the influence for so long, not to mention everything he'd been forced to relive again. For a while, she's silent, trying to reconcile all the conflicting emotions brewing within her— frustration at how easily he'd been able to push her out, sorrow that there hadn't been anything she could do to help him, anger that this had happened at all. She heaves an audible sigh. ]

I know you will. You know for next time now, right? Me, and Gen, too, probably... [ Where her hands are joined, her nail worries some of the skin on her ring finger, picking at it incessantly. ] We could help you...

[ Her own words seem meeker in turn, because she knows what it must sound like. She's a mostly normal person from normal Earth, dragged into a cosmic super war. What could she do to help him, if the need arose in a dangerous situation like what had happened in Venera? The answer is simple to her— she'd just figure it out. For someone close to her, nothing should be out of her ability to do. ]

And I'm not that mad, you just scared me is all... and not the stuff in your head, I mean. So you don't have to say sorry.

[ Misa kicks a rock on their path, likewise staring down at the ground as they walk. She'd only ever been scared for his sake— never about anything she'd happened upon while he was lost in the clutches of the Innocence. The only thing she hopes is that he knows that. ]

[baltimores]

[ He gets that, everything she's feeling. He probably even understands it better than he actually should. Amos knows there's a certain level to which they get each other, and nothing that happened in Venera seems to have damaged it. Threw him off track for a bit, maybe, but she's brought him right back on it. So when she says that she could help him... Both her and Gen...

Yeah. He believes it.

This might be the part where he'd try to pull her in, closer to his body as they walk, a physical sign of acceptance, but she'd also just said he smelled (and he probably does; he's just gotten used to it by this point), so... maybe not. Instead he just nods. Hopes his feelings are able to reach her, because fuck if he can put anything properly into words. ]

Okay. I don't want to do that again, so... next time. Next time I know.

[ Because he can't trust himself that there won't be a next time. It's not a great feeling.

... Though it does draw something from him, the fact that he'd been saved this time. He'd come across a number of people who had tried to get through to him, and he'd been able to brush all of them off except for Misa. Maybe it's because they were already that much closer, understood each other that much better, but he kinda doubts it. When he'd gone back over everything in his head on his walk back to Achamoth, it seemed innocuous at first, but reviewing it again now...

Amos looks over at her. ]

Misa... why'd you call me Timothy before?

[ It's a gentle question; she can refuse to answer him if she wants. He owes her at least that much. But that's a name nobody alive should know him by, and considering how it had reached him where absolutely nothing else could...

He trusts her, but knowing a little bit of the why might help, too. ]

[lifespanned]

[ She breathes a small sigh of relief when he at least accepts what she says— all this pent up anxiety over his well-being, and she's just glad that there's an increased chance that it won't happen again. After seeing what she had, and seeing how stridently he'd kept this all to himself, she can understand why he would pull away from everyone else. At the same time... it isn't right, if he just always defaults to shouldering everything alone.

At his question, though, she looks genuinely confused at first, before— oh, right, remembering that she'd abused her powers for a chance to get him out of that mess. She'd completely forgotten about it until this very moment. Misa spins the quickest lie she can think of, not thinking about whether or not it'll come out believable: ]

Oh, that...? I was like... hearing things, in there, even when it was all blank. Maybe because I'm the same Legacy as you, I could sense more. I just thought it might be something from your past, so I decided to say it...

[ Just pin it all on the mumbo-jumbo that is the magic of Aions and Legacies, right? It's possible... maybe. Though she's aware in the seconds after saying it that none of the other (many, many) Kenoma Lovers will ever be privy to such information. It'd be more believable if there were less of them. ]

[baltimores]

[ After everything she's just done for him — the effort of coming out to find him, to bring him back, to worry over him and rebuke him and put herself at risk for him, all of it playing again and again in his mind — he wants to believe her. He wants to just do this one thing for her, so badly. But Amos also knows just how well he's kept things tamped down, and there's absolutely no way it could have come up. Not when he'd barely even recognized himself as Amos at the time. The sheer shock of hearing his birth name was what had given her an edge in, not the other way around.

He's silent for a long moment, walking beside her in silence, debating how to proceed. There's a strong sense of doubt coming from him, though. If all of this has proven anything, it's that only he really gets how his brain works, so her explanation doesn't add up.

... Fuck it. ]

Yeah, maybe.

[ His heart's really not in the words, but they're... passable. Are they passable? Whatever; if he wants to let her off the hook, that's the best he can do.

Amos risks another glance back at her. ]

I'm lucky you found me, then.

[ Whatever it was that had compelled her to shout out his birth name — nobody else had. So that part really is the truth. He is lucky it was her, and he owes her big for it.

At least he's got a starting point for paying her back. ]

[lifespanned]

[ There's a part of her that wishes she didn't have to lie to him— if they were back on her Earth, then it'd be just like he was on the same side as Kira, right? So she shouldn't keep anything from him. But things are different. She has no way of knowing if she'll ever find her Death Note again, and in the case that she does... things should be this way. For now.

She senses that ounce of doubt from him, just from that word, "maybe," but she just lets the word come to her and pass, not allowing herself to second guess what he may think of her directly lying to him like this. ]

You're both lucky Misa was around, huh?

[ There's a huff, an attempt to play at her usual bravado, her usual self-importance. But even that lacks heart, too— she's worn out from the search, her energy dampened by a genuine concern for him. She doesn't have the humor at present to even jokingly complain about the sorry state of several of her friendships due to her healing attempts. ]

But I would've figured out something, even if that hadn't worked... I didn't know what would happen if you stayed that way. So I got scared.

[ He said he isn't mad, but she can't help but want to absolve herself of some of the guilt she'd felt and cutting him so deeply. ]

cw reference to past suicidal ideation

[baltimores]

[ Both...?

It hits Amos after a second: Gen. After he'd gone and completely fucked things up there, hurt him, she'd been the one to rescue him, too. Not that he'd ever had anything but a positive opinion of Misa, but Amos has so much more respect for her now. Recognizes that in her own way, she's probably one of the strongest among them.

And how he's made that weaken in this moment, the way her words don't ring quite the way they should. It makes sense, though. You can't be at your best all the time. So he finally just... wore her out.

He needs to not do that again. ]

I'm sorry.

[ It's... nothing, it's kinda everything. He isn't trying to self-flagellate anymore; there's no self-loathing behind the words this time. Just a simple matter of fact: whatever got him completely fucked up back in Venera, he had scared her. And a lot of other people, too. It really is all he can do to offer that sentiment and mean it, but now it's less I'm sorry I put you through that, more I'm sorry you went through that, period.

He takes a deep breath, steeling himself. ]

I don't know if you would've figured something out. Other people tried. [ Ciel. Matt. ] They were brutal. It should've worked. I just ended up brushing them off.

[ A long pause. ]

Guess you know now, though. So if something like that happens again... use it. Tear me down. I can take it. Wouldn't have made it here at all if I couldn't.

[ To Achamoth, to Horos, to adulthood. Take your pick, really. ]

[lifespanned]

[ She's quiet for a bit, smudging a lingering tear that falls with the heel of her palm. Misa gets it— or thinks she does. What he went through must have been so damaging and traumatic that he couldn't break free from the contagion by conventional or normal means. There's pain that transcends physical sensation, and if suffering was meant to evict the contagion, then there were far worse things that he'd already endured than whatever brutal means she assumes Ciel and Matt must have attempted.

It makes her feel... well, hurt, for him. It doesn't sit right with her, that he seems so okay with the prospect of enduring such a reminder again. Misa frowns, just slightly, mostly to herself— a willful defensiveness rising up in her. All she wants is to defend him from having to hurt like that. ]

Don't say that... I don't want to think about it happening again so soon.

[ Because she would follow through with what he requested— if she had to. But she doesn't want to. She can still recall the hurt look in his eyes, the pain in his voice when she'd kept cutting deeper - it's just... not a sound or sight she wants to see again, if she can help it. There's a pleading note to her voice, her gaze dropping to the cobblestone below them. She knows she can't predict if anything similar will ever happen in the future— but the stubborn part of her wants to believe that somehow, someway, she'll prevent it, come what may. ]

If that's really the only way to help you, then I promise I will, but... I don't like it, Amos. [ She confesses with a small voice, folding her hands together, painted nails picking at the skin of her thin fingers. ] I don't want you to think about all this anymore. Especially not because of me.

[ That's her tried and true method, of course— the parties involved aside from him are dead, now. So what point is there in thinking about it, unless absolutely necessary? If at all possible, she wants to make things so that he can lock all this away permanently, the way she had with her own problems before Venera. It's a gentle, honest concern for him that provokes her subdued response, an empathy that runs deeper than what she feels for her other kin. ]

[baltimores]

[ ... Fuck it, he doesn't care if she said he smells, he's gonna reach out and put his arm around her shoulders. Pull her in towards his body. Adjust his walk so that they're in sync with this new proximity, and not really want to let her go. ]

It's like you said, right? It's a part of me. It's why I am the way I am. That's never gonna go away.

[ If there was a way to make it go away — properly, not through whatever shit that had been back in Venera — he'd have taken it a long time ago. It's not like he hadn't asked about such things back in his own universe. It's just not possible. This is his life, always and forever.

He looks down at her, feeling that sense of protectiveness, that empathy, and it's. It's kind of a shock. Not that she feels it, just... the extent to which she does. He's never felt anything that deeply himself. He's simply not capable. So getting to experience for himself what he'd done to her...

Yeah. He's not gonna do this again. ]

You shouldn't like it. 's why I trust you. You'll only do it if it's necessary. And you actually will do it. [ That's just... they're cut from a similar cloth. Neither of them are the type to fuck around if the situation requires something more urgent, consequences on the others they care about be damned. ] If it happens again... I just want to know I'll have a way out. That's all.

[ He squeezes her to his side a little tighter before loosening up, enough that she can escape his grasp easily if she wants to. It's just that this moment now... he doesn't have the words to put to it. Just that he's reciprocating what he assumes must be the kind of closeness that comes normally to others, maybe, but only a fraction. That's as much as he's capable of. ]

[lifespanned]

[ She's a little surprised to be drawn in so suddenly - so surprised that she ends up stumbling a bit into him, blinking up at him owlishly, though not resisting. In a way, it's a little... foreign, to be held this way, at least with the platonic and wholesome intentions that he has here, something she can recognize as being distantly comforting, both for herself, and as a sign that he's at least feeling a little better.

More than that, when she really listens to what he's saying, I trust you, and I'll have a way out, that lightens her spirit. There's something very fulfilling about being relied on, and feeling useful to someone, even if the responsibility trusted to her is something she'd really rather never have to act on. A deep sense of satisfaction wells up in her, regardless, enough so that briefly, some of her immediate worry ebbs away, and a small, meek smile returns to her lips. ]

Relying on Misa, huh? Maybe you do still have some sense.

[ She jokes, though it's light, so as to not shatter the reserved turn of their conversation. It really isn't her style to let things stay in such an awful mood for long, either, and having some kind of acknowledgment that he'll entrust himself to her if the same situation ever arises is a bit of a comfort. So she's willing to relax, if only a smidge.

If she's going to be afforded his trust, then she wants to confirm that she can rise to that responsibility— that she won't shy away from it. He may ease up his hold on her, but she loosely wraps an arm around his waist as they continue walking, steadying him in whatever little way she can. Figuratively, literally. ]

If that's really how you feel, then as long as I'm around, no problem. I always help my friends. [ It could happen again, sure, but she'll be there to fix things if push comes to shove. Their lives have taken a turn for the unpredictable since becoming Aions, but she can afford him that one certainty. ] There, one less thing for Amos to worry about. So no need to go through all this again, right?

[baltimores]

[ There's a soft laugh from him at the idea of him having sense. It's a reaction to both the light but pleasant sentiment they're treading on now as much as it is to the words themselves. Yeah, that's the story of his life, isn't it — relying on others so he doesn't fuck up as bad as he's capable of.

This really could've been so much worse. He needs to never do it again — and the fact that Misa reinitiates that closeness as soon as he's given her a real chance to get away just confirms it. There's a warmth to that, not at all dissimilar from what he'd felt at the party she'd set up, when she'd ended up confiding in him deeper.

The question of how she knew his birth name still hangs over his head some, but... that's an issue for later. Or not at all, if things can keep going on like this instead. This — all of this — is so much more important. ]

Right.

[ He really means it. As tried and true a method this has been for him to escape from reality when things get to be too much, it's. He really can't do that anymore. It's not fair to the people who care about him, and turns out he has that. Not that he's never had that before, but it's more inescapable now. And this is one instinct of his he might actually be able to fight off, so.

His jovial nature dips for a second, turns solemn as he adds on, ] Thank you.

[ For... too many things to say, really, but he figures she gets them. So, not wanting to let things get low again, he heaves a long exhale, really feeling the abuse he's put his body through over the past several days now. ]

Think I need a nap. And some food. And a shower. And... a lot of things, actually. [ Yeah, that's all on him. ] I'm gonna... I'll figure it out when we get back. Probably a nap first.

[ And then he can go from there. ]