thenearshore | the road to hell is paved with good intentions

The fresh air cure has long been held in high esteem when it comes to ailments of the lungs, and in his more lucid moments Joscelin himself has been a great proponent of it. So despite his general aversion to sunlight, he can be found most afternoons propped up by pillows on the veranda, well wrapped against his fever and guarded against any insidious rays by the overhang.

He looks like shit, to put it mildly. Especially after the dream he'd had last night.

Out of her own brand of concern, Toyo has spent much of the day bringing him her toys and picture books. Even her favorite stuffed bunny. He's holding that right now, staring into its button eyes without really seeing anything. He wants to believe that last night was just another nightmare brought on by the fever, but he knows that isn't true. It had been too real for that, and it had answered too many questions.

"A fucking vampire," he says to himself, with a bitter laugh. "I'm a vampire."

It's an easy run over to the West District and with the mood Ginia is in, an excuse for a run and visit is welcome. She quickly wraps up her work and swings by the kitchen to see if there are any lunch boxes or snacks to take along. Food doesn't work for Joscelin the same way it does for others, but Ayumu and Toyo would probably appreciate something. Especially as Joscelin has been worryingly ill the last few days. At least he's well enough if he's posting on the BBS and getting some fresh air. Ginia packs up a few spare lunch boxes and some fresh mochi and swings by the Near Shore to buy some candy and soda too. A backpack full of goodies, Ginia begins her run to Ayumu's temple.

There's a lot they need to talk about, but Ginia isn't sure how to bring it up. One way or another, she needs to be honest about the fact she's known he's a vampire for some time, as well as what she saw in his dream. That still feels like dangerous territory though; perhaps all she canbe there is vague and generalize what Joscelin asked her.

Lonely. No, it's really not a word he would have used. For all her worries about the possibility of a monster unleashed, maybe it'll be okay. There are different kinds of monsters anyway,i t's all a matter of perspective. It's not like she's clean and innocent in any way whatsoever.

Ginia finds him on the verdana, a whistle heralding her arrival, a cold bottle of soda an offering. She sits next to him and unpacks the food, long legs stretching out in front once she's done.

"You're looking a bit better." Comparatively. Definitely not at full health, he's always going to look pallid, but an improvement is an improvement. Her hands lace together briefly, searching for the words she wants to say. "I'm going to be honest; I've known you were a vampire for awhile."

Joscelin greets Ginia with a halfhearted little wave of his heavily bandaged left hand. "That's nice of you to say," he says with a pale smile. "Thank you for attempting to spare my ego."

But there's no time for pleasantries, it seems. Ginia just comes out and says it. She's known. She's known for a while.

Joss snorts.

"Of course you have. I imagine everyone probably figured it out before I did. Maybe even Romeo. I'm hardly subtle, what with the fangs and--"

He breaks off to cough violently into a handkerchief, staining it with tiny spots of red.

"--What with the fangs and all, not to mention my dislike of daylight even with this on my person." He draws up the ring around his neck. "It's magic. Keeps me from turning to dust on a sunny day."

"It's easier to know when you're looking on the outside." There's no harm if she speculates on what he is and all the points are fairly obvious. She knows he's also wondered and speculated, come up against the same mental barriers that scream 'turn back, turn back' because self-preservation is key for a shinki's survival. They're all too smart for their own good. Sometimes Ginia wonders how Ebisu's temple has gone for so long without anyone falling. Or is it because they're all from this world and don't need to speculate about lost abilities and changes in their being?

"I remember the ring, you loaned it to me when I became a vampire, remember?" There, it's easier to say openly now that the secret is out. Confirm what he must have suspected, especially after she bit his shoulder. "But I've known about you longer too. Do you remember all those strange dreams in January?

That earns Ginia a sharp look. “I...yes, I remember.” She saw him in a dream? She’s known for that long?

Joscelin has to take a deep, wheezing breath to calm himself. He feels upset and betrayed, but he realizes why she couldn’t tell him. It’s the same reason why Joss can’t tell her about their conversation on a snowy Chicago rooftop, and why he can’t tell Romeo about their escape from an attic cell in Milan (seriously, though, what was with those dreams and roofs?).

“I wish you had told me,” he says quietly. “I know why you didn’t, though. I found out too much about Romeo and it kills me that I can’t tell him who he was before all this.”

"You didn't want me to tell you. You wanted to lead a life as a normal child, for as long as you could."

Not as a monster. She leaves that bit out because it's only salt on a fresh wound. It's something she knows he feels already, in the same way she feels like a monster. Knows she's a monster with fresh memories in her mind too.

"We played video games. You kicked my ass at racing games, if you must know." A faint smile, a light joke wrapped into the truth. Everything else... the woman waiting for her to feed off of, the portrait of his mother, the burden of his reality... maybe those are best left as her memories and locked away notes.

"But I'm not a normal child. I never was one." It's a blunt statement. Joscelin looks down at the bunny in his lap. "Though I think I know why I wanted that. This memory...was different from the other one. The other one was--seven or eight hours, at most. But last night, I think I dreamt about several days. A week, practically. From New Year's Eve to my birthday on the sixth of January." It's strange to think about. Parts of the memory are painfully vivid--ringing in 2019 alone with video games and a bottle of scotch, desperately wishing vampires could get drunk off normal alcohol. The murders and assassinations--those are a little more vague, as if they were such an everyday occurrence that they didn't quite rate.

"I think I hated myself, when I was alive. Or, well, not alive. Undead's the word, isn't it? I died in the fourteenth century. That's why I can't be normal. I'm just a monster riding around in a child's corpse."

Those words feel familiar. He must have spoken them some time during that week. The birthday party, maybe?

He gives Ginia a weak smile when she mentions the video games. "I would, wouldn't I? I had a lot of time to practice."

"You could have been one, once." It's a vague, generally, maybe even hopeful statement. He wasn't born a vampire, but was made one. So until that happened, he could have been a normal child living in the fourteenth century. Ginia hopes he doesn't remember more to disprove that either.

There's no denying what he is now, what he's lived through. There's also the question of what he'll do now. What one is isn't the same as what one can do. Isn't she a lesser proof of that? Even if right now, it all feels a little hopeless too. But for Joscelin's sake, she'll swallow her own misgivings.

"I think we can all choose what we want to do to some degree. That even though things were one way before, it doesn't always have to stay the same." Even an assassin can become an office worker, maybe. "So what are you going to do now, Joscelin?"

Joscelin shakes his head, no. "I'm sure that there was a Joss Fitzthomas who was a normal child, once, but he died a very long time ago and I took his place. I'm not even supposed to be a shinki--vampires don't have souls. When we die, we disappear. No ghosts." We. It's purely unintentional. He's sounding fairly adult right now, quite similar to the utterly defeated person Ginia met in a dream. His memories are bringing him closer to that person, further away from the hopeful child he so desperately wants to cling to.

He coughs again and then settles back on the pillows.

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't think I know who I am anymore. I didn't want this."

Edited 2019-06-24 01:33 (UTC)

Who asked for any of their life? The cultists feel so relatable right now, wanting a world without unhappiness or pain, for things to be better for them than they were. But Ginia's not going to begin cursing shrines to get her way, even if she's a bit lost over what to do with herself.

There's too much to lose now if she gives up though.

"I don't think any of us can be who we were in life. Not as shinki. Not without knowing everything. And knowing enough makes it hard to continue being as we were here." She stops and gives his knee a light pat. "Be someone new then. Don't try to figure it out immediately, give yourself time."

It is always easier giving advice to other people than following it yourself.

Be someone new. He can’t quite imagine that yet.

“I don’t want to worry Mum,” he says eventually, changing the subject slightly. “More than I have already, I mean—I hadn’t thought I’d get sick when I healed her. I don’t want her to think I’m probing where I shouldn’t after these memories. I’ve no intention to, you know.” Turn into a monster again. “Don’t want to sting her. But it’s hard. I got a week back. A week where I killed two vampires for calling me...someone’s little dog.” He frowns. “At the party, there was this man. Tall and thin with long, dark hair. He was French; we spoke French to each other. I...don’t remember his name, but I think he was someone quite important. The Duke of London. He was my friend, I think. I wanted to protect him the same way I want to protect Mum. I...know where the party is. It’ll be held in a hotel restaurant in Islington on the Sixth of January 2019. That’s less than two years away. Will you go with me, Ginia? I want to see him again.” Joscelin’s eyes are shining and what passes for a flush on his pallid cheeks grows as he begins to lose coherence. His fever is starting to spike.

“I was so lonely back then, but I think I miss him all the same.”

The chance the man Joscelin is looking for exists in this world is incredibly unlikely. The chance they'll go to a hotel restaurant in Islington on January sixth 2019 and find his friend is so, so slim. Maybe even impossible. It's dangerous too; who knows what could happen if they were to go there, if they managed to find an impossible man to confront.

Joscelin is sick and this is probably the feverish rambling of someone who can't think straight, and dammit, Ginia can't find it in her to say no. It's not like she hasn't written down all she could remember from her week of memories, it's not like she hasn't tried to pinpoint locations even knowing it doesn't matter.

Can they even make it to 2019 or will the forces that be send them back so much sooner?

"If we're both here in 2019, I'll go with you."

Joscelin smiles at her and reaches for her hand. “Thank you. I want you to meet him. I don’t think he’ll eat you—he’s not like that.” High praise. “We’ll both be here. We’ll fight the bastards and we won’t let them take us. All of us.” He clutches the stained handkerchief to his mouth as his body is wracked by a wave of violent coughs.

After two or three minutes, the coughing begins to subside. He’s very dizzy. “Will you get me some water, please?” He looks quite meek and quite small right now. “Toyo spilled the pitcher an hour ago so I think it’s back in the kitchen. Should be in the sink.”

He's warm, which is concerning for his general temperature. Ginia squeezes his hand, brow furrowing as he coughs. He mentioned healing Ayumu in his ramble and it doesn't seem to have turned out well for him. Her hand curls, wondering if there's something she can do, but general illness isn't something she can target like a cut.

"Sure, I'll put the food in the kitchen too." The temple's layout is simple enough to manage and she remembers enough from her brief visits. Ginia leaves the bento boxes in the fridge and leaves a note on the counter. She returns with the pitcher and a clean glass, pouring a cup for him.

Joss is sitting up on his bedding when she comes back, watching her. He looks slightly more coherent now.

“Why are you my friend, Ginia? Why do you bother, when all I ever do is insult you?”

...or maybe not so coherent. The waterworks are starting...now.

“I don’t want to be this way. I was so lonely. I hated myself. Every day I think I wanted to end it all but I was too much of a coward to do it myself. I don’t want to remember that. I don’t want to be him.”

It should be a simple answer.

Things rarely are.

Ginia sets down the water and pulls a clean handkerchief from her pocket. She wipes Joscelin's tears away and gives him a careful hug. It buys her some time to think as she combs her fingers through his hair.

"I suppose everyone deserves a chance." Ginia finally signs when she pulls away. "You were a brat, but not much more than anyone else. Then the ablution happened, then we spoke in your dream."

Maybe there's a version of their friendship that's a bit more sincere. Where she isn't keeping an eye on him as a possible threat, as someone to placate so he doesn't turn on them all. Maybe there's a version of her that doesn't assess the threat levels of everyone around her.

It's not this one. She likes Joscelin, believes he deserves a chance, but she still considers how fast she can throw up a borderline if she had to.

It's also what she assumes everyone gauges about her.

"You deserve a chance. So take it. Be better. You aren't so lonely here, are you?"

Joscelin leans into the hug, sobbing into her shoulder until the act of crying becomes too much work for his tired little body and the tears stop. He’s begun to realize that he doesn’t just care for Ginia, he may even love her in the way a small boy loves his elder sister. He loves Ginia and Toyo and especially Ayumu. Maybe this is what the Joss he remembers had been lacking: a family. Love.

He doesn’t quite understand it. Love is not an emotion he has language to describe.

At Ginia’s question, Joscelin shakes his head, no. There’s even a smile. “I’m not. I have a family here. You and Mum and Toyo and Romeo, hopeless as he is. I wish I’d had everyone back then. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted out so badly.”

They can both be confused by love. It's funny in a way; where Joss was alone, Ginia was surrounded by people. She had the handlers, the trainers, and she had her team. Maybe the nine of them were a family, broken and cobbled together as they were.

They were something and yet she hadn't hesitated to leave some of them behind. Or maybe she had a change of heart. Or maybe it was doomed to fail. Who knows how it ends.

"It's easy looking back and wishing things were different. There's no changing the past though."

Maybe the old shinki are lucky never getting scraps of memory, coming to incomplete conclusions. Difficult to say.

"Who knows how much time we have here. Make the best of it. You're a vampire, but you don't have to be the same way."

Her hand comes down to ruffle his hair.

"Be happy, Joss."

Joscelin snuggles closer to Ginia. Closer than he ever would, usually, but sickness and feverish delirium have lowered his inhibitions significantly. His hot little body is mostly in her lap at this point.

“I’ll go with you, too,” he says muzzily. “To America. I saw it in your dream, you know. We were standing in the snow, watching the city lights. I’ll go back with you.”

Ginia gently strokes his hair as he snuggles on her lap, but her hand stills at his words.

America. A city in the snow. She doesn't remember the dream, can't remember the dream, but she's learned enough about herself lately that she's not too surprised he mentions America. She knows American sign language along with Japanese sign language, is fluent in English.

She was sent to assassinate an FBI agent.

She knows, but not enough. Not the city, the location, not where she's from, not anything more. It's a dangerous bit of knowledge and she leans away unconsciously. There are too many questions in the static of her mind and she has to ignore it.

She can't know, she can't learn more, she can't, she can't, she can't.

"I don't want to go back. Ever."

Joscelin is finally stable enough to receive visitors two days after his spectacularly ill-advised little stunt. His fever still spikes at night, and his cough still threatens to tear him in two, but he's finally able to stay awake more than a few minutes at a stretch and can be persuaded to take small amounts of food.

Somehow, he looks even paler and skinnier than before. His skin looks papery, almost corpselike, and his lips have a bluish tinge. But at least he's stopped getting worse. The wound on his hand, the reason for this whole mess, is well wrapped in bandages and no longer bleeds. And even though he's weaker than a kitten, he still considers all of this well worth it.

Ayumu is healed. That's the most important thing.

His futon has been set up in the living room when Romeo arrives, and Joss is dozing as he listens to Toyo watch a brightly colored anime about a magical girl detective. It takes him a moment to realize that he has company.

There's a pale smile. "Hello, Romeo."

Romeo has been so worried about Joss since the moment miss Ayumu had told him that he was sick. He was glad that he could go and visit him and he arrives looking very worried.

He is even more worried when he sees him, Joss looks terrible, he's pale and sick and doesn't look like himself at all.

But Romeo smiles back, because it's important to keep Joss' spirits up. "Hello Joss, hello Toyo-chan."

He approaches closer, worry etched all over him. He looked so sick, Romeo wasn't even sure people could get better after being so sick.

Toyo’s been watching her show with the vacant stare that shows her soulless nature, but she turns to beam at Romeo when he says hello. He’s her beloved niichan’s very important friend, after all. “Romeo-niichan,” she says, parroting what she has been told, “Joss-niichan can’t play.”

Joss shakes his head. “It’s all right, Toyo. Romeo is here to talk, not play. Why don’t you go find your new doll and show him?”

She obediently disappears into her room.

“I did something rather stupid, Romeo,” Joscelin chuckles, then coughs painfully before saying, “But I’m going to get better.”

Edited 2019-06-24 06:11 (UTC)

"It's okay Toyo-chan! I know!" He's not going to make Joss do anything like moving! In fact he's going to do his best to make sure his friend rests well and doesn't hurt himself more.

"What happened?"

Something stupid... Stupid things didn't usually end in you being sick. Hurt maybe but not sick.

He hadn’t wanted Romeo to be concerned, but it appears he is. Joscelin grins at his best friend to try to dispel some of that worry.

“I played around a bit with my shinki power. It’s a bit different than some. I consume life force.” He waves vaguely. “I’m not quite certain, but I basically eat the ayakashi I cut when I’m a weapon. I eat most of it, but I can send some of that back to my god to heal minor wounds and give a little energy boost.

“I thought I’d do a bit of experimenting.”

This is the exciting bit. Joscelin looks happy despite the fever and the illness, even after he sinks back against his pillows because the exertion of talking is exhausting him.

“I healed her, Romeo. I fixed Mum’s eye, and her hand. Her scars are gone. She’s beautiful. But it got away from me. I accidentally used my own life force instead.”

Edited 2019-06-26 05:55 (UTC)

Consume life force? He ate ayakashi? That sounded a bit ikky. Romeo pulled a small face but he was still listening. It was a good power if it meant Joss' god could heal.

His mum? Romeo tilted his head, he had thought Joss' mum had died. That's what he had remembered. Was she here in the heavens? Had Joss found her? And now he had healed her.

"You ate your own life?" He blinked at his friend. "Is that why you are so sick? Will you get better?"

If he ate ayakashi and killed him, would he die too?

Joss cracks a pale grin. “Something like that. I don’t think I was supposed to use my powers that way. But Mum—Ayumu—Mum’s better now. I healed her scars and her bad eye. You should see her, Romeo. She’s beautiful.” His eyes are fever bright, cheeks flushed.

“Not that she wasn’t before but—“

He breaks off and coughs painfully into a handkerchief. And he keeps coughing. He keeps coughing until the handkerchief is stained with red. Finally, he’s done. He wipes his bloody mouth with the back of a shaky hand.

Oh he was calling Ayumu his mum... Romeo wasn't sure what to think about that but if that's what Joss wanted to do that was okay but now Joss was sick because he had tried to heal her and then he was coughing.

Romeo moved to him as he coughed, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He wished he knew a way to make him feel better.

But then there was blood. There was blood coming from Joss' mouth and Romeo paled. "Joss! You need a doctor! We need a doctor to come now!"

There were no doctors in heaven and Joss was already dead but maybe shinki could die again and if he was coughing blood then he was going to die. Joss isn't allowed to die! Romeo sprung up, panicked tears in his eyes as he tried to think of a way... Maybe they could teleport to a doctor? A hospital! They could teleport and go to a hospital...

the road to hell is paved with good intentions - open/closed

June 6 - ota (memory regain)

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CN suicidal ideation

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For Romeo - June 4

I am the latest, I am sorry

You’re fine!

Re: You’re fine!

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