hello darkness, hello goodbye;

[soukahisoka]

Day: 21
Characters: Hisoka Kurosaki soukahisoka, Grell Sutcliff chainsaw_juliet, Matt loadsavedgame, Joshua naturalpuppy, Rin cutest_avenger, Reeve felis_fidelus
Summary: Hisoka is using his empathy to recover, if not his own memories, at least others' memories of him. At least that's something.
DAY/NIGHT & Time: DAY/All day
Status: Open to those listed above, who replied to this post with an affirmative, and feel like logging

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[soukahisoka]

The first thing Hisoka got when he put his trembling fingers on Reeve's wrist was pain, hissing, red, and endless. Every joint, every organ, every muscle, every cell. Pain. Almost impossible to ignore, and only because Reeve was making a herculean effort was Hisoka able to maneuver past it, beneath it, although his fingers seized around Reeve's wrist, clamping on tight for a hold to something solid.

They went together as far back as Reeve's memory of Hisoka went, to what sounded like the first meeting. Irritation -- was that how Hisoka had inaugurated this place? By complaining about clothing? A ball. He'd arrived on the eve of a ball. Hisoka seized with relief upon the factoid; he could use it to date how long he'd been here, and it was trustworthy, for this deep in Reeve's thoughts and emotions, the sincerity and trustworthiness of the man was irreproachable.

The memory itself was almost embarrassing, but Reeve had been diplomatic, and grown sympathetic even as Hisoka panicked and floundered, spilling more information than he ever should have.

Hisoka heard his own voice once more in the context of a maelstrom, a sucking morass of hurt and helplessness. Reeve falling apart, and in the midst of that slow-motion shattering, Hisoka, insisting on truth, insisting on it, while Reeve's own mind got sucked further and further back, to a child, to a child's fear and vulnerability -- and oh god, those memories, shame, dark silhouettes and pain, helplessness, couldn't fight back, couldn't --

Hisoka's fingers spasmed as Reeve spiraled into self-hatred, into his own scars, which tore open as Hisoka watched in mute horror and bled red blood and black shame, tasted of sorrow, tasted of ashes, dark, red, black. A short, strangled cry escaped Hisoka's throat, and somehow he found himself thrown off the chair, on his knees by Reeve's bedside, his forehead pressed against the edge of the mattress, too trapped by his empathy to move, unable to let go as Reeve's barely-masked traumas threatened to undo him completely. The cry became a keen; Hisoka was barely aware of tears on his face, couldn't see anything but Reeve's memories of a presence he didn't know, couldn't identify, could only recognize as harbinger of pain and bringer of degradation. Reeve was reeling and terrified, and Hisoka was too, struggling for breath with bowed head.

[felis_fidelus]

Barely registering the grip on his wrist (the scarring from the burns dulled any feeling there), Reeve tried to keep a grip on the present, a hold on the here and now and not on the past, the... Gaia, those years, those years of helplessness and self-loathing and--

--and the clatter of a chair being thrown back, followed by the shark keening wail of someone in horrible, desperate pain, brought him partly back to his senses. No, he couldn't shove the memories back where they'd come from and stop them completely. Reeve didn't have the physical or emotional strength to stem the flow of memory and feeling. He could only struggle partly out of it, keep himself from being drowned in it, and try to drag Hisoka up as well.

Latching back on to Cait for strength, Reeve blinked the dampness from his eyes and tore his hand out of Hisoka's grasp, pushing the boy back so he wouldn't be able to touch him. He cursed himself inside. What use was it, in restoring a person's memories, if he had to inflict such pain on him to do so? Warning had been given, but even so... he shouldn't have ever agreed to it. Even not understanding how it worked, he shouldn't have. Not if it meant inflicting his own pain and memory onto the boy.

And now, Hisoka knew, more intimately than anyone, just what he'd gone through. Reeve took in a shuddering breath, trying to quell the sudden rush of shame and nausea. Gods, what had he just done? "... H-Hisoka...?" His voice trembled. "... 'm sorry. 'm... dammit. Shouldn' 've agreed t'...."

[soukahisoka]

Reeve broke Hisoka's grip and shoved him away, which left Hisoka huddled on the floor by the side of the bed. A short, sharp sob escaped the boy, and Hisoka put his face in his hands, years of shame and torment and defenselessness, compressed and jumpy, playing before his eyes like a cinematic reel. Reeve's memories weren't his own, but the pain that came with them might as well have been.

Without touch, the mind-meld was broken. Lesser things than the staggering burden Reeve labored under had rendered Hisoka unconscious before, but the boy wasn't so lucky this time. Still conscious, but faint and dazed, Hisoka heard Reeve's voice as if from the bottom of a well and lifted his face, turning heavily dilated eyes onto the older man. He saw dark rooms. He saw the shadow and he cringed before it --

Hisoka shut his eyes hard and crumpled it. Forced it down, forced it away, forced Reeve's pain back before it had excessive congress with his own and he forgot whose pain belonged to whom. As an unwilling empath since birth, he had experience sifting through emotions, continuing his own existence even while others' intrusive thoughts, memories, feelings brushed against his senses relentlessly.

"I'm fine," Hisoka said, opening shocking green eyes once more, although tears shimmered on his cheeks and those eyes were still a little distant, still absorbed in the pain of some other place and time. "This is what I do, it's what I am." He took a deep breath and wiped his face with a shaking hand. "You helped. I got what I asked for."

And so much more besides, but that was fucking obvious and Hisoka didn't need to say it. Reeve definitely didn't need to hear it.

[felis_fidelus]

The sob did it. Reeve covered his eyes before the tears could fall, trying to fake an air of neutrality. This was... it was like violating Hisoka, unintentionally, with his own uncontrollable memory. Making him relive every touch, every murmur, the false comfort and the endless variations on the same pain and shame-- it was degrading enough to have someone know, but to actually know each detail? And to have to relive it, Gaia, it was like his uncle had come out of the past and violated Hisoka too.

"Y'r... not fine. Don' lie." Reeve glanced under his hand at Hisoka, at the tears on his face, and cursed under his breath. Damp streaks were visible on his cheeks; he clenched his jaw and struggled to get his emotions under control. The world was growing foggy again, the shadows coming to the forefront. "Jus' b'cause 's... wha' y' do... doesn' make it ri'."

He could feel his vision blurring. No, he needed to be alone, by himself-- Reeve knew he was going to break down. Hisoka had seen his memories; he didn't need to see this too. "... 's tha'... all y' need?" he asked, voice choked and rough.

[soukahisoka]

A gun to his temple or a knife at his throat would have been less perilous to the empath than being in a room with Reeve at the point of breakdown. Hisoka could feel Reeve slipping, could feel the misty phantoms of the past and how they clawed and claimed him. Reeve wasn't Tsuzuki, Hisoka owed him nothing... except that Reeve had given Hisoka the memories he had asked for, while in terrible pain himself.

"I'm fine," Hisoka repeated, trying to sound firm, because even while in the midst of all that pain, Reeve managed to spare worry and concern for Hisoka, for someone like him, so unworthy of it. "That's all I need."

He hesitated a moment, but the gray mists that plucked and pawed at the heap of a man beneath the sheets were only too eager to turn on Hisoka as well. If he stayed, he knew better than anyone what would happen -- unconsciousness if he was lucky, and a screaming descent into the echoes of Reeve's desperation and shame if he wasn't. "But I can't stay," said Hisoka, torn between the cowardice of what it meant to run and leave this man to be eaten by his demons, and the practical voice inside him that told him he'd better leave now or those demons would have him next, once Reeve had fallen.

Already Hisoka's knees felt weak, his vision hazy as his empathy resounded with Reeve's trauma. Reeve wanted to be alone, and Hisoka hardly knew him, certainly not well enough to judge whether he should or shouldn't be left that way, so he made the coward's choice: he turned and staggered towards the door, slamming it shut behind him as he caught his breath with difficulty. Having the door between them did nothing; his empathy was too strong, Reeve's pain too powerful. Hisoka stumbled down the hall with one hand on the wall for support, blindly feeling for his own cell door.

[felis_fidelus]

"... don' wan' y' t' stay." If touch had driven Hisoka to his knees, when the memories had not even reached their worst, then chances were the boy could pick up on them now. Or if not and he needed to touch to gain rapport, he still needed to get out of there, to sort it all out and push it out of his system. It was Reeve's pain, his shame and burden. He didn't want anyone else to have to shoulder it. "G' on. Please."

Reeve didn't even have to mention how ill and drawn the boy looked now. It was a stark contrast to how Hisoka had looked when he'd first entered the room. His memories had done this. His memories, his pain. It wasn't fair.

Once the boy-- even his name was slipping now, under the shroud of red that clouded his vision-- had staggered out, once Reeve could no longer hear faint footsteps in the hallway... then it was all right. Curling over on his side, he began to weep bitter tears. He was too tired, too weak to keep the shadows at bay any longer. Too tired to deny the hissing voice in his ear (stay still, be good, don't tell), the mantra he'd heard for years. Too weak to deny the phantom fingers so cold on his skin. Cait's reserves were exhausted. There was no more safety net to cling to.

Covering his face in his hand, Reeve sobbed (quietly, quietly, can't let him hear) into the thin institutional pillow, the taste of tears mingling with that of blood. The darkness had come. His descent into the memories of Hell had started yet again, and there was nothing he could do but try and survive it. Again. And again.