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[undyingflames]

 

Feel free to hit me up with anything!!  I'm honestly always down for anything ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡
I've finished the game so spoilers are totally fine, though be careful looking in here if you haven't beaten it yet!

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[undyingflames]

[ Joshua blanches, his eyes widen and his face pale as he feels the dread and fear settle even heavier in his heart like an anchor and sink it further. Though she says she thinks... He thought he'd felt it, briefly, distantly in his sleep, and the surge of aether when he finally woke, though addled and panicked as he was, he hadn't realized it what it was in that moment. His coughing fit and the aftermath of what happened carving a new piece of him to stone...

He's all but certain.

He almost primed.

The Phoenix awoke in him when he was young and as a Dominant, calling on it's power was as natural as breathing. It's power like a current, powerful, sometimes too strong for a body as frail as his once was (and is now again), but entirely under his control as he willed it.

But this... He'd only felt it like this once before, that night at Phoenix Gate, as he watched a man kill his father right in front of him. The swell of unchecked and uncontrollable aether in his body, fanning the flames of his own emotions, when he'd only been but a child, to the point of turning them into a raging firestorm within himself until that's all he was.

But... in his sleep, Joshua didn't even think it possible. At his most vulnerable when he had no sense to stop it, hadn't realized it was even happening. That his mind could twist his memories and trauma into a nightmare so terrible he'd nearly been swallowed up by it. And had Jill not woken him... it scares -- terrifies him to think of what could've happened, the destruction he would've caused...

Again. ]

I... [ He swallows. His eyes look back down towards the bed under him and he turns his bloodied hand to see his palm and fingers painted red, hesitant in his answer.

What reassurances he would usually offer her are gone, stripped away by the nightmare. There is no hiding behind false words of comfort, nor what composure and clear mindedness he usually carries, because not even he can convince himself to say it. The fear, the nightmare and memories it dredged up have torn a scar that he'd thought long healed open again as fresh, gaping wound. The feeling of Ifrit's yellow eyes still boring into his minds eye with so much anger and rage. ]

I-I don't know, Jill... I... [ His voice still a little breathless, trembling. ]

[reasonandrime]

[The idea of getting Joshua anything is quickly abandoned, and Jill sits back on the bed beside him, taking him into her arms instead. For all the ways she can, unfortunately, relate to the bullshit Clive and Joshua have endured over the past eighteen years, she will never understand how it feels to lose control of her Eikon, and so she feels a little bit at a loss for how to soothe the all-encompassing pain he now carries.

Never in her life has she seen him this broken; never in her worst imagination could she have envisioned him looking so lost and distraught, in need of something that simply doesn't exist. Not in the world they live in, anyway.

But she knows she can't think like that – can't get mired in an incomprehensible pain that doesn't even belong to her. For now, she needs to centre herself in his anguish, unfamiliar to her though it may be, and support him in whatever ways he'll allow for.]

All right. It's all right. Take however much time you need.

[It's still not all right, she knows, but what other words are there? All she can do is try her very best to hold him together so that he doesn't turn to dust before her eyes.]

[undyingflames]

[ At first, Joshua can barely do more than allow himself to be brought into Jill's arms and limply lean into her, still struggling to pick up the pieces of himself that've seemingly shattered.

He's so much taller than her now and yet... he feels so terribly small in her arms, as if he were ten years old again. But her presence, her touch are grounding, comforting pulling him away from the nightmare that whispers for his attention in his mind, to be brought back here, to this moment.

But, with the adrenaline and furnace that'd been burning bright under his skin now gone, he can feel a cold now settling in around him, making a home in his chest. It's an unnatural, yet still familiar chill that clings to Jill, to her clothes, her skin, and wraps around him in the same embrace. A frigidness and subtle aether that hangs in the air and cools his lungs with every breath. It isn't just cool night air, but...

Shiva.

In the myriad of sensations and emotions when he woke up, he'd forgotten the cold he'd felt in his sleep, the numbing, frigid cold that creeped through the heat of the fires that raged inside him. And it was Jill. She'd woken him up. He'd been so lost to his own nightmare, to his own dreams that Jill had been forced to use her ice to combat the flames that burned inside of him -- and outside.

The fear and guilt that had only just begun to barely calm overwhelms him again in a rush and it feels as though it punches straight through his chest.

He'd almost just primed, nearly lost control of his Eikon again... nearly forced Jill to endure something so horrifically cruel. To bare witness as Joshua rained fire and ash, death and destruction while he would've remained blind and deaf to it all, consumed by the Phoenix. And she would've had to fight him in order to stop him... and he would've fought back, tried to hurt her, kill her... just as he did Clive. Just as they had to do with Dion.

And it scares him, terrifies him.

His eyes begin to well up with renewed tears that spill down his cheeks as he squeezes his eyes shut. He twists a little in her hold until his face is ducked down between her neck and shoulder, pressing strawberry blonde hair into her cheek, and brings his not bloodied hand around her back to grip her shoulder. ]

I'm sorry -- I'm so sorry... [ Joshua's always had a certain with words, but now it all feels so lost to him, and at the same time, don't feel like enough. ]

[reasonandrime]

[Whatever for, Jill almost asks, but her words are stayed by the simple logic of their circumstances. Just as the Phoenix's heat had overtaken the air itself, so too has Shiva's chill asserted its dominance. Joshua knows what he'd almost done; now he understands what she'd had to do in order to stop him.

Her grip on him tightens as much as she feels comfortable with, knowing the limitations of his strength and the way the curse has eaten away at his own flesh. One hand moves to cradle the back of his neck, her fingers gentle in his hair, gracing him with the soft touch of a loving sister. Like this, she wishes she could absorb his pain, make it her own, endure it on his behalf, because she knows there aren't really any words to make it go away.

Still, she tries anyway. Words are the only other thing she has.]

No, Joshua, don't apologise. There's naught to forgive.

[Which may seem falsely soothing, a little white lie cast between them to obfuscate the truth. When she tries to picture herself in his position, she wonders if her own mind would have roiled at the thought, too overwhelmed by a misplaced sense of self-flagellating disgust to grasp onto kinder truths.

Even so, she means it wholly. There's not a single part of her that blames Joshua for what happened. He could be the most strong-willed person in the whole of the world and still lack the power to overcome his dreams. Such is simply the way things are.]

Focus on yourself for now, all right? I'm here, we're both safe, and all else can wait.

[undyingflames]

[ He doesn't doubt Jill for a single moment, knowing that she doesn't blame him... and perhaps never would, especially with something like this, knowing, believing it when she says there's nothing to forgive. And he knows she's right. They're both safe, and that's all that matters.

But even still... the guilt and fear fights back in full force, makes it harder to let her words and touch comfort him, makes it so terribly hard to focus on anything else. Because he can't forgive himself. However much it may've been out of his control, and however much he understands that. Just as it was at Phoenix Gate, being nothing more than a child who'd had to bear witness to a betrayal of his countrymen, to horrors beyond his imagining, their minds aren't theirs to control when they sleep, nor whatever memories their dreams take form of.

But... just as with Phoenix Gate, it was still Joshua who rained fire down on Phoenix Gate before Ifrit ever came, killing so many of his own people who'd looked to him for strength, as their future leader, as the Phoenix... nearly killed Clive... And he shoulders that blame and guilt, he always has, and does now, nearly having done that to Jill.

He holds her a little tighter, a little closer, another silent apology he can't put to words as the tears spill over faster down his cheeks and he lets out a muffled cry into her shoulder. Shiva's cold -- Jill's cold a balm against the heat of the flames, more welcoming and comforting now than a fire could ever be. ]

...I-I dreamt of that night, Jill. [ It comes spilling out, like a confession, like he's trying to explain, his voice raw. ] Of Phoenix Gate. A-And I cannot bear the thought that I...

[ The words get caught in his throat and he lets out another small breath to cry. ] That I could have hurt you as I have hurt -- killed so many others, I--

[reasonandrime]

[Jill's heart shatters; its shrapnel drops to her stomach, and she can feel the sharp pains of its churning the more that Joshua fights – yet struggles – to stay afloat. There remains nothing she can say and little she can do to assuage any of the grief that he carries within him like a sickness, like a curse every bit as destructive as the one inflicted upon him by his own damned aether. All she can do is scramble for something that feels productive and hope that it lands well enough to at least inch him out of the mire he's sinking into ever deeper.]

I know. We're all too strong for our own good, and beholden to whims beyond our reckoning. But this time you fought yourself, Joshua. Even in your dreams, you refused to relinquish full control. It takes but a moment to prime, but I had time enough to stop you. Believe in that, if nothing else.

[Here, she presses the gentlest of kisses to the crown of his head, then smiles softly before pulling back to rest her chin in the very same place. She thinks about how much easier this was when he was small and could better fit into her arms. Their pains were so much simpler then, quickly soothed away with love and hugs and smiles alone. What she wouldn't give for the slightest taste of that simplicity now.

And maybe she could try to grasp onto that now. Find a light in the darkness. A glimmer of hope. But she's been doing that for five years now, and she knows that it's an ineffective salve. The pain always returns. The nightmares always leave their reminders. So, she doesn't search for ways to make things easier. Instead, she embraces the complexities.]

Maybe we should talk about what happened at Phoenix Gate.