031; [fanfic] Persona 4 -- Clock Hands Revolving
Title: Clock Hands Revolving
Fandom: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Characters: Adachi
Wordcount: 1,169
Notes: Endgame spoilers. I would be lying if I said I didn't take stylistic cues from Static by zero_damage.
I.
Adachi screams.
It's 10:36 at night, and he's only now gotten back to his dinky apartment in the suburbs. The top brass had been drilling him for hours, asking the same five or six questions over and over until he could have answered them in his sleep. The process became so automatic that he kept repeating the answers during the drive home, pleading his case to no one.
They couldn't prove anything. And that was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he dreaded the very idea of being exiled to some damn town in the middle of fucking nowhere (Yasoinaba, he reminds himself, the very name sounding like a curse in his head), hated that he had to uproot what little life he'd managed to carve out for himself.
On the other hand, it was better than being fired.
But only just barely.
II.
Adachi cries.
It's 7:49 in the evening, and here he is in the middle of an even dinkier apartment in Inaba. The place is only one room, barely enough space for a futon and a table and maybe a bookshelf if you're creative, and it's totally empty, barren, like a wasteland. He drops to his knees, exhausted from the drive and exhausted by his life, runs his hands through his hair, and just sobs.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be special, elite, the best of the best, not shunted out to the boonies, the entire contents of his pitiful life crammed in the trunk of his crappy Toyota. Not that he could even claim many things to his name, both literally and figuratively.
He has nothing, and he has everything.
A miserable life.
III.
Adachi screams.
It's 3:28 in the morning, and he's sitting bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring down his face. In five minutes, that old woman who lives downstairs will probably be banging on his door, sleepily slurring that you should keep the racket down you damn kid. But if she'd seen the nightmares he just did (one while asleep, another while awake), she'd know better than to rag on him about it.
It was an accident. He couldn't possibly have known that she would fall into the TV when he pushed her against it, nor that she would be found dead on an antenna a few days later. And the worst part was that she still looked alive when they pulled her down, still vibrant and beautiful and everything she wouldn't let him have.
Death was a fate too horrible for her.
Too horrible, and also too good.
IV.
Adachi cries.
It's 4:02 in the afternoon, and he's in the men's room at the police station. He'd been on his way out when he caught sight of himself in the mirror, stopped, stared without recognition. He couldn't figure out when he'd started looking so hollow, so pale, like a photocopy of himself when the toner was low.
They don't suspect me. That was where his prior experience came in; he was better at covering his tracks this time, better at lying, better at misleading, better at acting the role he'd set out for himself. Most importantly, better at weaseling his way into his partner's life, manipulating him, playing the fool for him.
Dojima would never suspect the bumbling rookie.
And why should he?
V.
Adachi screams.
It's 11:51 at night, and he's on his hands and knees on a hotel bed. Dojima's behind him, pressed into him, one hand wrapped around and sloppily jerking him. It's not romantic or even particularly pleasurable, but it's release and that's what counts, for Dojima more so than him.
Now the trap is sprung. It was almost embarrassing how easily he was able to exploit his partner, convince him that this was what he wanted, needed, deeply desired. Maybe it was true, and Dojima really did need a good lay (probably hadn't gotten any since his wife bit it) -- or maybe it was all a lie, and he was telling himself that Dojima needed it because that would get him what he wanted.
The scream is not one of pleasure.
It's one of triumph.
VI.
Adachi cries.
It's 1:35 in the morning, and he's slumped forward in a chair in the hospital waiting room. He covers his face with his hands, trying not to think about the agonized look on Dojima's face as they wheeled him into the emergency room. He wasn't dead, not even close, but that face could have fooled anyone.
It had to happen this way. He doesn't understand why, but he knows it in his gut, that this was an unfortunate circumstance that couldn't be avoided. But he still can't shake the feeling that this is his fault somehow, because if it weren't for him then this whole mess might never have happened, and he wouldn't be inhaling the sharp stench of Dojima's blood on his hands.
He pulls his hands from his face, looks at them.
They're clean, but the smell remains.
VII.
Adachi screams.
He has no idea what time it is, and he's standing in the middle of a broken asphalt street while a red-and-black sky looms overhead. Dark, shadowy monsters are coalescing out of the thick fog, and he takes a step back, looks behind him, sees that the monsters are there too. Panic threatens to take hold of him, but a portion of his mind that was locked away suddenly snaps itself into motion.
Power beyond my wildest dreams. The name of the creature that shimmers into being next to him is unimportant, irrelevant compared to the rush of adrenaline he feels as it slices its mighty sword through one amorphous blob after another, causing them to explode into nothingness. When its work is done and the monsters are no more, it too evaporates into a fine mist, fading into the yellow air.
He's alone again, but the corners of his mouth curl up into a smile.
Because he's not alone.
VIII.
Adachi cries.
It's 6:19 in the evening, and he's slumped in front of a television in the Junes electronics department. Those damn kids are here, the ones who ruined everything, who came into the world he built and tore down the caution tape walls and thoroughly defeated him. They wouldn't even allow him the dignity to die in peace, devoured by the Shadows.
It wasn't any different, in the end. He'd spent months carefully studying every move before he made it, keeping all the pawns in check, teasing and playing with his opponent just to make it interesting, but it had all slipped away in one flash of weakness. And he can feel that creature (Magatsu Izanagi, he reminds himself, though it hardly matters now) shattering and fragmenting, the rough edges cutting the soft mass of his brain, leaving only pain and emptiness behind.
Power, strong and potent and intoxicating, had been so fleeting.
But it wasn't his power to begin with.
Fandom: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Characters: Adachi
Wordcount: 1,169
Notes: Endgame spoilers. I would be lying if I said I didn't take stylistic cues from Static by zero_damage.
I.
Adachi screams.
It's 10:36 at night, and he's only now gotten back to his dinky apartment in the suburbs. The top brass had been drilling him for hours, asking the same five or six questions over and over until he could have answered them in his sleep. The process became so automatic that he kept repeating the answers during the drive home, pleading his case to no one.
They couldn't prove anything. And that was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he dreaded the very idea of being exiled to some damn town in the middle of fucking nowhere (Yasoinaba, he reminds himself, the very name sounding like a curse in his head), hated that he had to uproot what little life he'd managed to carve out for himself.
On the other hand, it was better than being fired.
But only just barely.
II.
Adachi cries.
It's 7:49 in the evening, and here he is in the middle of an even dinkier apartment in Inaba. The place is only one room, barely enough space for a futon and a table and maybe a bookshelf if you're creative, and it's totally empty, barren, like a wasteland. He drops to his knees, exhausted from the drive and exhausted by his life, runs his hands through his hair, and just sobs.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be special, elite, the best of the best, not shunted out to the boonies, the entire contents of his pitiful life crammed in the trunk of his crappy Toyota. Not that he could even claim many things to his name, both literally and figuratively.
He has nothing, and he has everything.
A miserable life.
III.
Adachi screams.
It's 3:28 in the morning, and he's sitting bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring down his face. In five minutes, that old woman who lives downstairs will probably be banging on his door, sleepily slurring that you should keep the racket down you damn kid. But if she'd seen the nightmares he just did (one while asleep, another while awake), she'd know better than to rag on him about it.
It was an accident. He couldn't possibly have known that she would fall into the TV when he pushed her against it, nor that she would be found dead on an antenna a few days later. And the worst part was that she still looked alive when they pulled her down, still vibrant and beautiful and everything she wouldn't let him have.
Death was a fate too horrible for her.
Too horrible, and also too good.
IV.
Adachi cries.
It's 4:02 in the afternoon, and he's in the men's room at the police station. He'd been on his way out when he caught sight of himself in the mirror, stopped, stared without recognition. He couldn't figure out when he'd started looking so hollow, so pale, like a photocopy of himself when the toner was low.
They don't suspect me. That was where his prior experience came in; he was better at covering his tracks this time, better at lying, better at misleading, better at acting the role he'd set out for himself. Most importantly, better at weaseling his way into his partner's life, manipulating him, playing the fool for him.
Dojima would never suspect the bumbling rookie.
And why should he?
V.
Adachi screams.
It's 11:51 at night, and he's on his hands and knees on a hotel bed. Dojima's behind him, pressed into him, one hand wrapped around and sloppily jerking him. It's not romantic or even particularly pleasurable, but it's release and that's what counts, for Dojima more so than him.
Now the trap is sprung. It was almost embarrassing how easily he was able to exploit his partner, convince him that this was what he wanted, needed, deeply desired. Maybe it was true, and Dojima really did need a good lay (probably hadn't gotten any since his wife bit it) -- or maybe it was all a lie, and he was telling himself that Dojima needed it because that would get him what he wanted.
The scream is not one of pleasure.
It's one of triumph.
VI.
Adachi cries.
It's 1:35 in the morning, and he's slumped forward in a chair in the hospital waiting room. He covers his face with his hands, trying not to think about the agonized look on Dojima's face as they wheeled him into the emergency room. He wasn't dead, not even close, but that face could have fooled anyone.
It had to happen this way. He doesn't understand why, but he knows it in his gut, that this was an unfortunate circumstance that couldn't be avoided. But he still can't shake the feeling that this is his fault somehow, because if it weren't for him then this whole mess might never have happened, and he wouldn't be inhaling the sharp stench of Dojima's blood on his hands.
He pulls his hands from his face, looks at them.
They're clean, but the smell remains.
VII.
Adachi screams.
He has no idea what time it is, and he's standing in the middle of a broken asphalt street while a red-and-black sky looms overhead. Dark, shadowy monsters are coalescing out of the thick fog, and he takes a step back, looks behind him, sees that the monsters are there too. Panic threatens to take hold of him, but a portion of his mind that was locked away suddenly snaps itself into motion.
Power beyond my wildest dreams. The name of the creature that shimmers into being next to him is unimportant, irrelevant compared to the rush of adrenaline he feels as it slices its mighty sword through one amorphous blob after another, causing them to explode into nothingness. When its work is done and the monsters are no more, it too evaporates into a fine mist, fading into the yellow air.
He's alone again, but the corners of his mouth curl up into a smile.
Because he's not alone.
VIII.
Adachi cries.
It's 6:19 in the evening, and he's slumped in front of a television in the Junes electronics department. Those damn kids are here, the ones who ruined everything, who came into the world he built and tore down the caution tape walls and thoroughly defeated him. They wouldn't even allow him the dignity to die in peace, devoured by the Shadows.
It wasn't any different, in the end. He'd spent months carefully studying every move before he made it, keeping all the pawns in check, teasing and playing with his opponent just to make it interesting, but it had all slipped away in one flash of weakness. And he can feel that creature (Magatsu Izanagi, he reminds himself, though it hardly matters now) shattering and fragmenting, the rough edges cutting the soft mass of his brain, leaving only pain and emptiness behind.
Power, strong and potent and intoxicating, had been so fleeting.
But it wasn't his power to begin with.