( there is always a sharp thrill of exhilaration that shoots through him under circumstances like this — the soft and pliant way that another body succumbs to what force he could impress upon it, the knowing resistance of bone, the breathy sound of pain that catches somewhere between mouth and lungs. it's something that makoto would usually indulge in, not often given any position of power over another person, but he doesn't want to allow himself such a thing here — no, not with dextera. he shoves it roughly out of mind, instead too wrapped up in his momentary despair, smarting with the pain of what he personally perceives as some sort of betrayal, some sort of abandonment. having never really been given any positive or healthy model of it to embody and emulate, makoto neither cares nor loves in ways that are conducive to anyone but himself. he is selfish, controlling, indolent, perhaps even stagnant in its proposed actualization — if he ever actually reached the point of what for him resembled stable happiness with someone else, he would try to preserve that moment in amber for himself, regardless of what it might cost to him or the other.
he would want to divorce himself from time, from change, from pain, from reason, all so he could cling to the tiny shard of lasting happiness he believed he might have found for himself. should his life have continued its previous trajectory in Hell, this is what he would one day find himself wanting for himself and J: he would have dreamed to keep him prisoner in his own manor, a caged bird both literally and metaphorically, his life forever sustained so long as makoto could lovingly shape the syllables of his name in his own mouth and not shatter.
this would have been the fate that J would escape by the exact same procedure.
just based on who and what they are, makoto could never understand the arguments that dextera would level against him. for makoto, whose life has been nothing but a long string of successive alienations, humiliations, and failures, it has been carefully fostered within his instincts at a base level that that is exactly the time during which you fight the hardest. if he is ever going to go down, he is going to go down wildly swinging, taking as much out of his breaker as he could before the determined strands of his soul were finally undone. that is the type of brutal tenacity that would leave its mark upon the world.
dextera grabs his wrists, and somewhere deep and distant in the scarred sections of makoto's memories, something stirs. something which produces a deep and moving fear of what might happen next, the reflex that would carry one to flinch at a raised hand after habitually weathering abuse.
but it doesn't come. as much of a mess as his memories and self are, there is something in makoto that recognizes this as clemency, and that's reflected in the bald-faced emotion inherent in his gaze, in the rushing current of his emotions.
there's a certain amount of suspension in his expression before dextera replies, but as he does, it's shattered entirely — just as his shard once had, placed beneath a torrent of unending ennui, the porcelain mask of his face cracks right down the middle as hot, painful tears begin to claw their way out of the corners of his eyes and crowd along his the bottom lid. even though he's the one crouched over dextera's chest, he feels as though some sort of massive monstrosity has reached out to crush his ribcage in one immense claw, all a somewhat-manic sudden release of emotion, of still-present despair and newly-fledged relief all at once. he feels like he can barely breathe. it's all he can do to slowly slacken the grip he has on the front of dextera's clothing; his throat feels so raw and so constricted that he knows he wouldn't be able to force words out without them transmogrifying into gasping sobs, so he instead forces them into the space of their Communion. for dextera, and only him: )
You cannot see who I am at my heart and leave me behind.
( even in communicating these painful thoughts to him this way, he fails at maintaining his composure. his throat aches, and he chokes out a silent sob; hot tears stream down his face, falling away from him. )
Everyone - everyone who knows, who even suspects, has always... will always —
no subject
he would want to divorce himself from time, from change, from pain, from reason, all so he could cling to the tiny shard of lasting happiness he believed he might have found for himself. should his life have continued its previous trajectory in Hell, this is what he would one day find himself wanting for himself and J: he would have dreamed to keep him prisoner in his own manor, a caged bird both literally and metaphorically, his life forever sustained so long as makoto could lovingly shape the syllables of his name in his own mouth and not shatter.
this would have been the fate that J would escape by the exact same procedure.
just based on who and what they are, makoto could never understand the arguments that dextera would level against him. for makoto, whose life has been nothing but a long string of successive alienations, humiliations, and failures, it has been carefully fostered within his instincts at a base level that that is exactly the time during which you fight the hardest. if he is ever going to go down, he is going to go down wildly swinging, taking as much out of his breaker as he could before the determined strands of his soul were finally undone. that is the type of brutal tenacity that would leave its mark upon the world.
dextera grabs his wrists, and somewhere deep and distant in the scarred sections of makoto's memories, something stirs. something which produces a deep and moving fear of what might happen next, the reflex that would carry one to flinch at a raised hand after habitually weathering abuse.
but it doesn't come. as much of a mess as his memories and self are, there is something in makoto that recognizes this as clemency, and that's reflected in the bald-faced emotion inherent in his gaze, in the rushing current of his emotions.
there's a certain amount of suspension in his expression before dextera replies, but as he does, it's shattered entirely — just as his shard once had, placed beneath a torrent of unending ennui, the porcelain mask of his face cracks right down the middle as hot, painful tears begin to claw their way out of the corners of his eyes and crowd along his the bottom lid. even though he's the one crouched over dextera's chest, he feels as though some sort of massive monstrosity has reached out to crush his ribcage in one immense claw, all a somewhat-manic sudden release of emotion, of still-present despair and newly-fledged relief all at once. he feels like he can barely breathe. it's all he can do to slowly slacken the grip he has on the front of dextera's clothing; his throat feels so raw and so constricted that he knows he wouldn't be able to force words out without them transmogrifying into gasping sobs, so he instead forces them into the space of their Communion. for dextera, and only him: )
You cannot see who I am at my heart and leave me behind.
( even in communicating these painful thoughts to him this way, he fails at maintaining his composure. his throat aches, and he chokes out a silent sob; hot tears stream down his face, falling away from him. )
Everyone - everyone who knows, who even suspects, has always... will always —