[CLOSED] there were days when I hurt you so bad

[pancakeboy]

[[OOC: this thread is closed to gorobo.]]

Magpie is having a very normal day. To wit, he's standing in the lee of the train carriage in Station Square, staring down at his phone. His face is pinched and white; he looks, for some reason, both far too young and excessively old.

Hopefully nobody will happen past in the next thirty to sixty seconds.

Comments

[gorobo]

As fate would have it, someone does pass by in those thirty to sixty seconds.

Falcon didn't mean to run into anyone, his own face pulled into a frown. He can't help it. He feels... gross. Yes, that's the word. Seeing the post from someone who claims to be his mother, yet is so clearly not, makes him want to break something. He both wants and doesn't want to go to Mementos, his feelings a tangle of conflict, hurt, and anger.

When he looks up, his eyes fall onto Magpie, who... doesn't look good. He wonders if he should leave him to it, but also, he looks like someone just died in front of him.

Magpie does have complicated feelings around his own mother, doesn't he? With the way he's staring at his phone...

Ah. Everyone can see that post, after all.

"Hey," he calls out a greeting. If he sounds more strained than usual- well, that's his business.

[pancakeboy]

A lesser man would drop his phone at this point. Magpie, however, is—well, for all his flaws, and all his crimes, he at least has elementary self-control.

He doesn't smile, though, not that he'd have smiled at Falcon either way. It's a respect thing. He just slides his phone back into his pocket, with a near-immaculate mask. "Good afternoon. Fancy seeing you here."

Near Mementos, he means. Shit, who he is kidding? Falcon probably has a built-in lie detector. That works.

[gorobo]

... Yeah, Falcon isn't falling for that shit. He does not have a built-in lie detector, but the mask is so fake it makes him want to roll his eyes. He does.

"Not so much a 'good' one, is it?" he scoffs. "Fancy seeing you here, too. You can drop the act, by the way."

[pancakeboy]

"Oh, come on. What happened to honour between... well, technically I was only a thief for two days." But he does drop the mask. Not as much as he ever does, but some.

"You're having trouble as well?" Why would that be? Surely not the post he just saw? Falcon did speak sombrely of his mother, but....

[gorobo]

"Hah. I've never been a thief, so I wouldn't know."

The quip falls flat, what with the sour look in his face. Whatever. He makes a gesture at the air.

"Oh, you know how it is," he huffs. "Just having a normal day when suddenly some shit or another decides to reopen old wounds."

There's a pause. He looks like he's debating saying something else, and then:

"That woman- on the network," he says, "that's not- it's not her. But it is."

He's sure he doesn't need to elaborate on what he's talking about.

[pancakeboy]

No, he doesn't. Magpie's face becomes a little more closed again. "It isn't her," he says, agreeing.

Unfortunately, then he keeps thinking about it. For someone who blocks shit out so well, it never delivers when he really wants it to; he sighs. "And it is. I've seen her, you know. I don't know what she's done with her hair, but...."

But in her face, at least, more or less... yes, it was her.

[gorobo]

"So you have."

He doesn't envy Magpie for having seen her in person. (Or does he? He just- he can't fucking tell.)

"My mother is dead," he hisses. Not at Magpie. (Or does he?) "It's not her. Where does she get off saying she-"

He cuts himself off, shaking his head. "... and yet. The others certainly seem happy enough about it."

[pancakeboy]

Oh, the others. Pff—well, except for Raven. "Phoenix's question seemed reasonable enough, I suppose. I might have asked it myself, if I had the inclination. Dove—the less said about him the better. Frog doesn't signify. Raven...." His lips pinch. Shit. "Raven's young."

What would he have done at thirteen, after all, if he could have turned around and found his mother there? How different might things have been? He doesn't want to think about it; he looks back to Falcon. "It's not rational, is it?"

The impulse, he means. They know the facts, the basic workings of their shared multiverse. But that doesn't make it different.

[gorobo]

Falcon's expression tightens.

"... I suppose Raven is understandable," he says, because indeed, Raven is young. Raven, who hadn't become what they had been, and never would.

Is it rational? Maybe. Maybe not. Even 4 years later, the wound feels fresh. He hasn't allowed himself to think about it, and having that imitation show up feels like pouring salt into the still-smarting wound. "Perhaps not," he answers shortly. "But that doesn't change things, does it?"

[pancakeboy]

"No." Because having whoever's mother that is walking about, breathing and talking and laughing and thriving.... it's almost worse than an insult. That vision of what she could, should, have been. He doesn't know what happened to Falcon's mother, but he can put the pieces together.

"I'm not sure," he adds, still looking just a bit pale, and too tight around the eyes, "how much of what we think is truly rational. But this one really does rub it in. You aren't alone in your objections."

[gorobo]

"One can only wonder how much rationality is left after..." he makes a sharp, terse gesture, "... everything. I'd like to think I'm plenty rational where it counts, but who even knows anymore." He barks out a laugh. It's harsh and angry. "Not me."

"It feels like a taunt, doesn't it?" he grits out. He's not pale like Magpie, but if he were human, he might've been. Or perhaps he'd be red, with anger and frustration. Either way, his face is pulled into a tight, angry frown. "It's not bad enough that you have to see mirrors of yourself, no. Let's make it worse."

[pancakeboy]

"Careful. It could be worse, you know." His lip curls at the corner. "You could wake up and find yourself a child. Whatever that means for you."

Yes, that happened to him. Falcon will already know, from Raven's board.

[gorobo]

"So I've heard. I've been assured that 'we would not do such a thing to you, considering your past'." He rolls his eyes. "Such benevolent overlords we have here."

The sarcasm is palpable. As is the anger. He doesn't pity Magpie for it, but it does piss him off.

He fucking hates it here.

[pancakeboy]

That actually wrings a bit of a laugh from him. He leans back against the green wall of the carriage. The smile doesn't last. "You mean, because of...?"

Because Falcon was controlled; because he was stripped of free will. Magpie was controlled, at least to a certain degree, and that hasn't stopped Igor.

[gorobo]

"Presumably," he bites out, crossing his arms and looking away.

Does he even need to elaborate? They both know what he's talking about.

Fucking Igor.

[pancakeboy]

Yeah. Nothing, Magpie's certain, can convince him of Igor's benevolence. The whole thing is a joke. So there was some complicated shit with his own timeline and his younger self, and so he probably isn't going to try and murder Ren and get killed and all of that crap. That doesn't justify what's been done to them all.

Again, he thinks of Raven, and hisses to himself, frustrated. "Where were you going, anyway? Mementos?"

Either that or the Palace, which he knows well enough is around Mementos, somehow.

[gorobo]

Falcon glances at Magpie, then shrugs.

"I wasn't sure. Seeing that- I needed to do something, and Mementos happens to be familiar," he concedes, "but I've made up my mind. I need to break something."

He turns to face Magpie fully. The emotion on his face is a complicated one. Angry, and hurt, and frustrated.

"What about you? You can come if you want," he says, looking away again, "or not. I'm not your boss."