*inhale* - Tumblr Posts
Sun would love pets
Moon however....
Ya might lose more than a hand.
@bearitt-creations
Because the rocks were floating….. in Xmen Last Stand… I’m so funny….
Scrambled
After Akari’s memory gets scrambled by the effects of a confusion attack, she forgets almost everything, including who Ingo is.
I wasn’t expecting to write another one so soon, but I found myself with no internet connection and a lot of time to kill last night. I wrote this without any requests this time, as this is a concept I’d like to explore in much more detail later on!
OR read here on AO3!
Enjoy!
————
“Besides the few cuts and scrapes, she’s not hurt.”
“She was unbalanced when I brought her. Is that still an issue?”
“That seems to have lessened some, and will get better over time. Many people affected had dealt with that initially.”
“She was experiencing difficulties finding words earlier...”
“Just another common side effect. That seems to have recovered as well; she was talking fine with me when I was examining her.” Pesselle could tell these answers weren’t really reassuring the largest worry that was still yet to be verbalized. “Everything else has more or less stabilized.”
Standing in the Galaxy Hall’s hallway, Ingo broke his gaze away from Pesselle’s to glance into her medical office. Akari was sitting on Pesselle’s examination table, with the medical corps captain’s crogunk sitting with her.
“Well, that is relieving, I suppose.” The warden felt a weight lift off his shoulders… most of it, at least. “But, can you hazard a guess as to how long her state of mind will be like this?”
Within the medical room, Akari looked up, seeming to sense Ingo was looking over at her from the doorway. But instead of a familiar warm grin, or a reassuring smile, she returned his gaze with a look of indifference… if not distant confusion hidden behind suspicion.
There was no recognition. Like she didn’t know who he was.
“Well,” Pesselle looked over her notes, moreso out of nervous habit than anything; Ingo’s own potent concern was starting to affect her own demeanor. “It’s hard to say. You have to understand, we haven’t really had anyone in the survey corps experience being hit with this many waves of Confusion at once. You’re sure it was four kadabra?”
Ingo broke his uncomfortable gaze with Akari, returning it back to Pesselle as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It was a massive mass outbreak. I would not be surprised if it was more.”
“Another outbreak? She needs to be more careful-“
“I can assure you, she was exercising just as much caution as I was.” Ingo stopped Pesselle’s train of thought before it got too far down those tracks. Akari had been making an effort to better mind her surroundings, and Ingo wanted to give credit where credit was due. “There was simply an unscheduled secondary horde that made itself known. Neither of us were quite prepared for it.”
If utilized right, the use of Teleportation could catch even the most aware targets off-guard.
Pesselle cleared her throat at the correction and folded her notes back up, tucking all the loose papers together. “Well then, the best I can suggest is really to just watch her for now. When affected by a case of Confusion, people seem to have recovered their memories within a day or so. But understandably, Akari might take a bit longer.”
“So it isn’t permanent at this severity.” It was a hopeful question phrased as a confirmation statement.
“I can’t say, but I have no reason to believe it wouldn’t be like the other cases, seeing as other things are already starting to return to her.” Pesselle wished she could offer more certainty. “Just stay with her, and make sure she’s alright until the effects wear off, and she recovers her memory.”
“Ah, Miss Pesselle,” The woman had turned to enter the office again, but Ingo hesitated, reaching out to tap her arm and keep her back. “She does not appear to recall who I am at all, and it seems she is not too keen on departing with me. I admit, I did not make the best first impression with Miss Akari in this scrambled state of hers.”
Ingo had collected the teen up in his arms and carried her across the Fieldlands as best he could, taking her back to a safe place as soon as she had crumpled in the tallgrass. But in retrospect, with her confusion-scrambled memories in mind, it had made sense when she had shouted and tried to shove off of him like she had no idea who he was, groggily coming to when slung across his shoulder. Normally, she would have clung tighter.
Akari generally was not someone who acted unfriendly or standoffish when first meeting new people - a memory scramble would not get rid of that entirely. But this experience was not nearly as pleasant as their actual first interaction when Irida introduced the two of them at the training grounds, where she had treated him with cautious friendliness.
So it was both understandable, and a feat, that Ingo had managed to get Akari to become skeptical of him.
“Supervising company like that may not go over well with her.” Ingo appeared troubled. Pesselle knew Ingo well enough to know he specifically meant his supervising company, but she didn’t exactly know what to offer in order to alleviate it.
“…It’s ok, I’ll let her know it’s alright.”
Pesselle stepped back into the room, and Ingo followed after; Akari looked up at the two of them as they did so.
Ingo did not like how the eyes of a wary stranger lingered on him.
————
Ingo opened the doors to the Galaxy Hall, and Akari slipped out between them.
She did not joke about how she should hold the door for him instead, as one does for old people, like she normally would have.
She did not run through, telling him the last one to The Wallflower would have to pay for both their meals, and he was only giving her a head start by getting stuck holding the door (though Ingo was always perfectly content with that), like she usually did.
She didn’t even have the usual bounce in her step, just happy to be spending time with him.
She just walked through, giving him a casual side glance and uttering a ‘thank you’ as she did so.
Ingo’s frown tugged down. He followed Akari down the steps, standing off to the side as she looked down the dark strip of Jubilife Village’s storefronts. The sun had long set, and everything had closed hours ago, with the village asleep in its entirety under the dark night sky.
“Ahem,” Ingo cleared his throat. “…your unit is this way, Miss Akari.” He pointed in the direction of the gates. “Just past the Ginkgo Guild’s cart. It’s not too far.”
All Akari could manage was an ‘oh,’ as if she was already chastising herself for not remembering, while she fell into step behind him.
…Behind him, not by his side like she usually did.
It had taken some time for Pesselle to convince Akari that Ingo was someone she knew - immensely so - and not just some wilderness thief who had tried to take her belongings earlier.
Their prolonged conversation of reassurance had pained Ingo to listen to. Akari was just as unfamiliar with Pesselle as she was with him, but it was clear that she trusted the medical corps captain more than she trusted him.
And he felt he couldn’t blame her hesitance. Pesselle was Pesselle, with her reassuring bedside manners, and her disarming smiling. And well, Ingo was…
Ingo had gradually learned to become less conscious of his conventionally-intimidating appearance with repeated disregard over it from Akari, but the essential stranger staring at him made the familiar worries poke at him again.
It was strange seeing someone he cared about so much look at him like that.
Though in the end, Pesselle had convinced Akari, and she went with him, leaving the office with instructions to return daily for checkups on her memory, as well as gradually re-introduce herself to her Jubilife friends.
“Thank you,” Akari stayed behind him as he turned to head for her unit. “Um, I’m sorry about hitting you earlier when you were trying to help get me to safety. And shouting at you. And kneeing you...”
“It’s alright.” Ingo tried to reassure her as he kept moving forward, set on guiding her. And truly it would be alright, perhaps after the ugly teenager-knee-shaped bruise under his clothes had faded. “You were simply confused by what was occurring at the time, understandably so.”
Akari stayed uncharacteristically silent at that, simply humming in acknowledgement instead. Ingo didn’t exactly know what the Akari he knew would have said, but that was probably because the Akari he knew wouldn’t have even had this awkward small-talk conversation with him in the first place.
He just recognized that her courteousness, as polite as it was, seemed empty without the familiarity and warm recognition behind it. It seemed she still didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
Would she be this detached from everyone else? Surely to some degree, she would.
It made Ingo anxious for that familiarity to come back. And it would come back. But until then, it would be a long week.
We should be fine as long as we do not reblog bread.
Mortarion
for @leftsharkhypocrite
fun looking alt under cut
Go outside. Enjoy nature. I'm about to put on some different pants and walk in this for a bit.
FOOD DISCOURSE: reblog with ur opinions on guacamole, olives, mango, hummus, tomatoes, and cannolis
Doodles of kitty Spydoc as I pull myself out of this funk.