[Accidental Voice/Video ->Text; Backdated to Morning]

[themortalhalf]

[The feed begins with noise.

It's sharp, sudden. No video, just the sound of something being roughly rummaged through, with no apparent concern about being quiet or subtle about the affair, before it's shoved away across some surface—falling. Hitting the floor. A box, maybe, with something in it.

Then, a voice: tense, frustrated, uneven, breathing rapid, shallow, and unsteady, words strained and laced with panic.]

Dammit.

Where did—

[More noise.

Then, abruptly, the video feed flickers to life. There's a glimpse of a hand touching the screen, shaking, before the device is quickly shoved away. It slides along the surface of an apparent desk, catching a brief glimpse of a ceiling as it tumbles onto the floor, landing not far away from a cardboard box and a beat-up looking radio. The room it lies in is one dimly lit—the only light provided is due to the streaks of sunlight peeking in from the gaps in the curtain and blind-covered window. Makes it hard to discern much in the way of detail, but it's enough to make out a bed shoved at an odd, jutting angle—nearly shoved up against the closet—with tangled covers. A sign of some sort in front of the long curtain that's covering (as anyone familiar with the layout of the apartments might deduce) the entrance to the balcony, and then, finally, an obscured half-view of the desk shoved against a door. There's more movement off camera, sounds of a drawer being pulled open and gone through, until, finally, there's a quieter sound—perhaps of a lid popping open and its contents retrieved— followed by a period of silence.

Not long afterward, Shinjiro finally steps into view, crossing the room and sliding slowly down onto his bed.]

Shit. Can't even—

[He looks down then, eyes settling on the COMP on the floor. He stares at it for a few moments, grimacing, before standing up again, movement unsteady, reaching down to swipe it up off the floor. If he notices the feed is still recording, he doesn't show it, and the feed, after a moment, cuts off.

Then, a few minutes later, a message:]

[Failed Filter/Private Message to the P3 cast]

i dont know where you all are but get back home and stay the hell inside

just do it alright

Comments

[themortalhalf]

[He jerks a little at the contact, but is grateful for its briefness. As soon as she lets go, he slams the door shut behind her, like he was forcing something out. Locks it again.]

Yeah.

[There's nothing out of the ordinary there. Though he'd rather deal with physical symptoms than mental ones if he could choose. He can handle the former. But that would be too easy.

Now to put the table back. He can't leave it where it is.]

[greatseal]

[She wants to comment on the table but...]

Nothing's going to get through there anyway.

[...okay she can't avoid commenting on the table.]

[themortalhalf]

Good. [He looks back at his handiwork.

...Not that you can be extremely creative when it comes to defensively positioning a table against something. What he needs are miles of concrete and steel, and he doesn't have that, unless he'd like to construct an army of pots and pans, conscript them into haphazard cavalry doubling as an early warning system.

He doubts it'll hold worth shit, but it will buy them time. Maybe. Seconds.

He'd have moved the refrigerator, but that would have ruined the food. There isn't an outlet near the door.]

That's the point.

[The comment are almost automatic, and it takes him a few seconds to realize how that probably sounds, and shrugs his shoulders.]

Sorry.

[greatseal]

[At least he's still himself enough to not ruin food.]

Don't be. It's not your fault.

[She's moving around now, inspecting the rest of the apartment. Trying to see what else he's done to the place.] How long have you been feeling like this?

[themortalhalf]

[The good thing about owning little is that there's not much to throw into chaos. He did go through the cupboards and drawers, but most items are where they usually are, with an occasional pan or plate out of place where it's not supposed to be—on the counter, in the sink despite being clean. There's a knife or two in the first drawer where it'd be easily reachable. But most objects are stored in their usual places, if scattered and disorganized like a child had shoved them inside.

His room is a bit of a different story. But she'll have to get past the desk she'll find once she opens the door first.

He watches her wander around the room, keeping a few feet away, but following, eyes always darting around the room. He grimaces and shrugs again.] A few days.

[Though it hadn't been exactly like this. It had been tolerable then. Uncomfortable, but tolerable. Hadn't felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff with only one way down with imaginary wolves on his heels.]

[greatseal]

[To be perfectly honest... her plan stopped at making it through the door. Now that she's inside, she isn't really sure what she should do. She's no doctor, despite her time on the health committee...

Maybe if she can at least get him to lie down, he might feel less frantic.]

And it's been getting worse?

[whoops she's opened the door to his bedroom now...]

[themortalhalf]

[Well, there's a desk there. She gets to enjoy pushing it away or climbing over it if she wants to go further. He wishes she would just stay still and not move around so much, but considers that a lost cause since he can't apparently stop her from doing anything for more than ten minutes at a time.

His answer is silence, which is as much of a confirmation as anything. It certainly hasn't gotten better.]

[greatseal]

[she vaults over it like a boss starts to push it out of the way. Pushing it back into the position it's supposed to be, actually. It's just a hazard the way it is now.

someday, he'll graduate to stopping her for a full twenty minutes.]

[themortalhalf]

[And it being a hazard was entirely Shinjiro's point. He follows her into his room, shutting the door behind him, and fighting the urge to push the desk back up against the door. He'll see if he can wait long enough to see if she wants to head back into the other area, but it's like an itch gnawing at the forefront of his mind, refusing to be ignored.

Everything else is out of place as the desk was, though most of his important belongings were shoved inside his desk—like his Evoker. There's the axe he got from Q in his closet propped up against the wall. His regular one is underneath his bed, which is shoved against the closet at an almost diagonal angle, because it wasn't about to fit inside the closet, so it might as well block it. The covers look like they'd been stripped off once for some purpose or other before Shinjiro had abandoned the idea. The cardboard box is still on the floor along with the radio. The glass and door to the balcony are shrouded by curtains.

He still doesn't say a word, just leans against the desk and watches her, her and the balcony door, just in case anything decides to come bursting through it, just to make his day.]

[greatseal]

[What he's going to see while he's watching is her standing hands on hips, surveying the damage.... and then start to move everything back where it belongs.

Sorry Shinji, your redecorating job sucked.]

[themortalhalf]

[Yeah, well, he wasn't redecorating his room to please her or the Home & Garden network.

And once she starts to move things, he inwardly flinches, because she can't do that. He had shoved them where there for a reason. Admittedly one that appeals to a very skewed sense of logic, but at least moving them to where he thought they should go, appealing to his apparent irrationality, removed a worry or two off his list. It's one less thing for his mind to dwell on, and as soon as she starts moving more of his things back into place he wants to put them back, because they're useless where they were before.

Useless. And they aren't serving a practical purpose like blocking the damn doors or creating an obstacle they'll have to get through. She's making things easier. And he doesn't want things to be easier. He can all ready see things going to hell without her making their eventual demise quicker.

She can't see what she's doing.

Of course she can't.

Everything's fine, and they should all be worrying about aesthetics instead, because whatever's coming is going to be pissed if his room doesn't look right. Might as well roll out the damn red carpet and pull out the welcome mat. He grimaces and shakes his head, breathing in and trying very, very hard not to stop moving his desk back where it should be. He shoves his shaking hangs into his pockets. Keeps them there.]

Leave everything where it is.

[greatseal]

[She does stop when he says that, for what it's worth. Turns around and looks at him, studying how he looks even more erratic.]

...You can't live with it like this. There's no bed and you can't use the kitchen or the bathroom.

[themortalhalf]

[He's glad she stops.]

If I need something, I'll get it.

[And it wasn't like things would stay this way for very long. There are only so many ways all of this can end, and by then, a disorganized room would be the least of anyone's problems—let alone hers. He knows what he hopes will happen, and knows what his mind is betting on. That makes two very distinct outcomes.]

[greatseal]

[Okay. Let's try a different tactic.]

You're afraid something is going to come into the room, right? That's why you're blocking everything off?

[themortalhalf]

[And she should be blocking off hers, too. Or wherever she ends up after she leaves, but he doubts that will happen. He keeps his eyes on the balcony door.]

Something like that.

[But it's not like any of this is going to keep anything or anyone out, not in the end. It can't stop anything real. He can't even keep Minako out.]

[greatseal]

Okay. [And she starts to move furniture again.

She takes the mattress off the bed and wedges it into the closet as far as it will go. Then she blocks off the back window with the box spring and moves the dresser and desk to build a wall around the closet. Finally, she dumps all of the sheets and pillows on top of the mattress.

When she's done (no protests from him will be tolerated through this) he's got some kind of strange parody of a kid's fort, the mattress walled off by as much of the other furniture as she could wedge around it. The path to the kitchen door is still clear, but he's got the table against the front door so there shouldn't be a problem, right?

She plops down in the middle of the pile of sheets.]

There. It's safe now.

1/2

[themortalhalf]

[Though he may have started to protest the moment she started to take his desk away, any attempt at doing so extinguishes in the face of a very clear thought:

What the hell is she doing?

Because she's acting just as weird as he is, and that's fucking saying something at this point.

And her actions are just baffling enough of a system override to allow him to stop and watch as she pushes things around.]

2/2

[themortalhalf]

[And then the pieces begin to fall together.

She's building a fort.

He's not sure this whole thing is her thinking outside the box or if she'd just laughing at the rules from somewhere inside it. But either way, it's completely ridiculous—though no more ridiculous than some of the stuff he's pulled off in the last 24 hours—except he also views it as something that has a degree of logic to it that will seem pretty damn deranged by the time the event is over. But for now, it makes sense.

And by the time she's finished, he does want to move the desk back where it belongs, but that would compromise the integrity of the... whatever it is. Her castle fort thing. So he stays where he is, leans back against the wall by the door (someone has to guard it), where he has the best vantage point of the entire room.

Her fort, in the end, won't stop anything any more than the table against the door will. It's all just a childish attempt to stop the inevitable, when you're desperate enough to try almost anything that will make the compulsions stop and the dread and fear abate to a tolerable level. That's all this is, isn't it? He understands why she's dong it. Surprised, almost, that she's willing to when she doesn't understand the half of it, only that he has a childish need to block everything off because he doesn't want to let something in. It's stupid. All of this is.

There's a strangled laugh as slides down to the floor and stares at her what she's created.

He doesn't know what to do with her at all.]

Safe as things will ever be.

[greatseal]

[She tilts her head at him.]

Well? Are you going to just stay out there now?

[themortalhalf]

[The answer to that is no, but the lack of something in front of the door makes him side-eye it for far longer than normal reason would dictate. He doesn't want to leave it alone, and has half a mind to drag the desk back over—the integrity of her creation be damned, He'll make it into a circle, a mockery of a tower, and the desk will stay and guard its place until the city rots (into dust and blood and bone and ash)—but he doesn't. Not yet.

He grimaces instead, checks his thoughts, tries to ignore another faint but insistent, scratching whisper (not going to die, damn you all to hell), and moves to join her, no doubt breaking another one of his mind's unwritten rules by doing so.]

I feel like a damn kid.

[greatseal]

That's because you're acting like one.

[It doesn't sound like she's really annoyed or upset by it, though. She's moved past her 'concern' stage and has moved on to acceptance. Clearly Shinji has contracted some kind of affliction, but fussing about it won't fix it. Better to be cheery and try and make him comfortable.]

[themortalhalf]

I know.

[He can see it. Like an outside observer who can't do a damn thing about what the observed subject does or how it thinks. Except children act this way in reaction to imaginary things that will never be real.

This... isn't. Something's out to kill them even if it isn't here yet. It's just a matter of time.

Either that, or he's crazy. Degenerating into it an inch at a time.

But at the moment, he just feels like he's vacillating between both.]

[greatseal]

[She keeps smiling, but now reaches across the pile of sheets and pillows to find his hand.]

It'll be okay. I'll protect you from anything that tries to break in.

[themortalhalf]

[He grimaces, and wishes he had it in them to find her comment funny. Wishes he could smile as much as she does and shrug everything off, but it's hard to when all her words do is trigger images of the door being broken down like he never had one, with something dark and angry crawling along the walls like pure chaos might if it were given form, followed by others of the same make, though he can't make out who or what they are no matter how hard his eyes try to pierce it.

Had she been this cheery when they had gone to fight Nyx? He can only imagine the dread that had built up from day to day had felt something like this, not knowing if anything was going to be okay or not, just that something was coming that they maybe didn't have a chance in hell of fighting. And they hadn't. It had taken a miracle to save the world.]

Tch... [He lets her take his hand, shaking though it is, squeezing it once.] Just... [don't die] watch it, yeah?

[greatseal]

[By the time Nyx had actually arrived... Yes, she had been. Well, maybe not as outwardly so, but it was the time for determination, not fear. They'd all worked past that in December.

She leans in to his shoulder.] Okay.

[In other words... she's going to behave exactly as she normally does.]

I mean it, though. I won't let anything happen to you. ['again.']