[open] please don't leave me

[abnormalizes]

WHO: Evangeline, Rinku's unconscious body, and you
WHAT: Keeping a vigil
WHEN: January 1st - January 6th
WHERE: Hospital
WARNINGS: Soul removal, comas, fear of loss. Possibly possession and body horror talk.

[Evangeline maintains a silent vigil in Rinku's hospital room.

She knows she isn't going to wake up naturally. The senses taking that potion for Grim Reaper powers afforded her let her see that Rinku's soul isn't in her body. She's told the nurses and doctors plainly that that's what's wrong with her.

Would she gladly go beat the shit out of whatever it was that took over Max until he returned Rinku's soul? In a heartbeat. But she's not mentally stable enough to use her EGO right now, and she knows better than to think she has a chance against something that could overpower Max without it.

Which leaves her here, watching over Rinku's body, hoping that someone else defeats whoever it was and Rinku's soul returns.

When another visitor enters, she taps out a message on her text-to-speech program on her phone.]

"Thanks for coming."

Comments

[roundandaround]

[Mecchan wasn't allowed in the room for a while, whisked away to a separate room until he could stop making all the staff and visitors cry. But he's tentatively been readmitted, wearing little paper shoe covers on his feet and sitting on the bed sniffling.

He looks up at Evangeline and babbles at her. Were we bad?]

[abnormalizes]

[Oh, no, baby. Evangeline would hug him, but she needs her hands to type.]

"No, you weren't bad. It's just hard for the staff to work while crying, but it's normal to cry in a situation like this."

[roundandaround]

[Mecchan sniffles. He blows a bubble and leans against Rinku's side.

I didn't wanna play the song Hina wrote because it would make Frills mad. And now the doctors are mad too. Is Rinku mad?

The word he uses for "Rinku" is half "trainer" and half "mom," he's never been quite sure.]

[abnormalizes]

"Rinku's not mad. She would never be mad at you."

[That much Evangeline is certain of.]

[roundandaround]

[Another bubble. Mecchan reads the message slowly, sounding out all the words. He toddles over to climb onto Evangeline's lap and hugs her as best his tiny arms can.

Did your voice go away too, Aunt Evangeline?]

[abnormalizes]

[Evangeline does her best to pat his head while typing one-handed. Thank goodness for text to speech.]

"People are singing their secrets. I don't want to spill my secrets, so I shapeshifted away my vocal cords."

[roundandaround]

[Mecchan snuggles. He's trying to be comforting...

Scary! What's vocal cords? Aunt Evangeline's secrets bad?]

[abnormalizes]

"Vocal cords are the body part that let you talk. And my secrets... they're dangerous. Not for me, but other people would get hurt if they were found out."

[She'd be okay, but other people definitely would not.]

and as requested

[roundandaround]

[At some point, Evangeline needs to rest. And at that point, she can dream.

Rinku drifts into a new area, still in the same outfit she wore on stage. Wherever it is she's stepped into, she blinks and looks around.]

It feels like Neechan in here...

Re: and as requested

[abnormalizes]

[It's a containment unit. Notably, there's no Abnormality here, just Evangeline, whose eyes go wide when she sees Rinku.]

-Rinku? What are you doing here?

[Is this another nightmare where something horrible happens to Rinku in her world, because that would check out.]

[roundandaround]

Neechan!

[Rinku runs and hugs her tightly.]

I don't know. I've been all over the place. Is this your head?

[abnormalizes]

It looks like it. It's really you? Not just a dream?

[Evangeline squeezes her like she can keep her from disappearing that way.]

[roundandaround]

[Hugggggggg.]

I think I'm real. It might be a dream, but can you be real and in a dream at once? I know we did that kinda thing in February when Bartholomew-san tried out that mind spell...

[She stops and tilts her head a little.]

Wait, I was just talking to him before! He went to the concert! He was talking about wanting to fix his spell so that didn't happen again, and I cheered him on! Is that how come I'm finding all these places instead of... I dunno, wherever that guy in Davis-san tried to send me?

[abnormalizes]

I don't know? But I'm glad you're here and not wherever that is, I don't want to know where he meant to send you.

[L Corp sucks, but it's better than Fae Hell, probably.]

[roundandaround]

Yeah... This happened to other people once too. Not the going into dreams or minds or something. But when we were still trying to stop Pumina-chan back when she was still Proto-Lumina, she messed with a XROSS∞BEAT and put Neo-chan in a coma. Something about... a soundwave that reaches the collective unconscious? And sending her soul there? And then when we tried to bait Pumina-chan out, the same thing happened to Rika-chan. We got them out eventually.

[abnormalizes]

So it's okay? You're sure it's fixable?

[Please, please be fixable, please.]

[castaside]

Macaque walks into the room, looking exactly like the suite he feels like. But he's not going to let that stand in the way. Evangeline comforted him when Lucifer was gone, he can do the same.

Also Esme might be with him but that can be its own thread of Deria wants to.

"Hey. How are you holding up?" Macaque asks, doing a decent job of hiding the guilt that would be in his voice.

[abnormalizes]

Tap tap tap.

"Not fantastic. If I hadn't shapeshifted away my vocal cords I'd probably be screaming a little."

[castaside]

Macaque's brow furrows. "Why do you feel that you shouldn't speak?"

In all honesty, it's not a bad idea. Macaque wishes that he had shapeshifted away his everything right about now.

[abnormalizes]

"My secrets aren't any less dangerous if they come out in song form. No thank you, can't make me."

[castaside]

"Fair enough," he says with a sad smile. He hasn't been affected by the music himself, but Melodymania got his pound of flesh and then some.

"Do you need anything? Other than that which is obvious and sadly out of my control."

--Not that he'd be able to do anything other than fuck it up, with his recent record.

[abnormalizes]

She considers it for a long moment.

"I'd like it if someone could tell me everything was going to be okay, but I understand if you can't do that either."

[castaside]

Macaque lays a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"It'll be okay. Somehow." He doesn't have the faintest clue either, but--

"I'll do everything in my power to make it okay." This he says with no shortage of determination. Everything in his power is a lot of power.

i owe you another tag-in, but,

[twofacedlight]

[ Evangeline loves Rinku. Jyoti l... has A Lot Of Feelings for Evangeline. And Jyoti likes Rinku. So of course she'll stop to check in on the two of them.

(it's not actually of course, but she won't fight against the swelling emotions in her chest this time.)

She takes a seat next to Evangeline and wraps her arm around her. ]

... Yeah.

[ She doesn't know what to say - she's not one to comfort others - but hopefully her presence makes up for it. ]

never too many threads with the girls

[abnormalizes]

[Evangeline rests her head on Jyoti's shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again to type.]

"This fucking sucks."

[That should summarize her feelings pretty clearly.]