Hot Potatoes

by Dracozion

Co-Written by Suffaru41 Nightmares of things that couldn't—shouldn't have possibly happened have been plaguing the Emilia camp all while Subaru rests peacefully. In which Subaru is keeping secrets, fails miserably at it, and accidentally drags the Emilia camp into his mess. It turns out that sleep is far, far from a solace—and it's best not to fall too deeply into it this time.

2. Chapter 2

The walk to the room is dead silent, with only the stiff shuffles of everyone behind Beatrice making any noise.

No one wanted to believe it at first. No one wants to believe it now. Each and every one of them's been overtaken by denial that someone as strong as Subaru himself could fall into such a state.

But they've all caved to logic soon enough. They all know that Betty has absolutely no reason to lie about this. That Betty would never be so obviously distraught otherwise.

So she steps in first, tentatively, as the room itself feels wrong. A heavy, cold atmosphere looms over her forebodingly; the air here feels thick and stale and dead. In the corner of her eye, shadows almost seem to move of their own accord.

And yet, warm sunlight streams in through the closed curtains, but she still shivers, clutching her arms tightly around herself.

Subaru still hasn't roused himself from his sleep. Perhaps some part of herself—the desperate, frantic, scared part of herself that's every bit the child she appears to be—hoped that she would be greeted by one of Subaru's quips, and that she'd just been mistaken.

But no—he stayed there, perfectly still, asleep and—no. No. That wasn't sleep. No matter how much she hoped otherwise, he looked so painfully peaceful lying there like that, without a care in the world. If he stays like this, forever—Betty doesn't know what she'd do with herself, or the rest of the camp, and—they can't just lose Subaru.

They can't.

When I wake up… I promise that I'll explain. Promise.

Her hollow voice fills the room, drifting outside into the corridor: "Betty supposes you should come in."

Ram is the first to enter, her head strung high and her eyes cold and glossy—and then she sees Subaru, and her entire facade crumbles into quiet despair.

She's followed by Garfiel, who's hunched over and far more subdued as he freezes at the side of the bed. Hesitantly, he stretches out a hand, his fingers just barely missing Subaru's shoulder, before letting out a harsh and pained yet soft, "Capt'n..."

Otto doesn't say anything. With his eyebrows screwed together in concentration, and his lips pursed together, he looks down at the floorboards—far, far away in thought.

He, Garfiel, and Ram all shift out of the way for Emilia to come in, their shaken forms observing silently.

With her hands reaching to cover her mouth in horror, Emilia breathes, "Subaru. Subaru…" She turns to Beatrice, rapidly blinking away tears. "Is there something we can do to help him, Beatrice? There has to be a way—this is Subaru we're talking about. He never stays down for long. Can he be healed, or—"

Beatrice mutely shakes her head, the hurt so painfully apparent in her expression. She refuses to meet Emilia's eyes, instead staring at the floor in shame.

When I wake up, I promise that—

Emilia shivers. "Beatrice. Otto—surely you know of something, no matter how obscure." Her words are calm, but a hint of pleading slips into them. She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "If we can figure out how Subaru ended up like this, then we can find a way to wake him up from his slumber. I'm—I'm certain of it."

Ram's red, red eyes sharpen, almost glowing like a predator's in the darkness of the room. "The potion," she snaps, staring down at Subaru's eerily still face. An almost accusatory tone floods into her voice. "Now is not the time to keep secrets. Does this potion have anything to do with why Barusu is comatose?"

"But w-what does a—a potion have ta fuckin' do with—with this?" Garfiel asks hoarsely. His hands curl and uncurl into fists, nails shifting between human and animal. "Unless—y'have a potion t' fix Capt'n a-and—"

"No," Otto says sharply. Garfiel turns to Otto with a small sob curling in his throat. Otto swallows and starts again, "The potion I mentioned earlier—I know now that it's the reason why Natsuki-san is in this state. And—giving him another potion—that'll only make things worse." He hesitates for a second, before giving a stiff nod in Beatrice's direction. "I think… I finally figured out what exactly was in those bottles."

The sunlight dims, and Subaru's face contorts, suddenly. His breathing quickens too—but it's so fast that Betty—Betty had to be imagining it. Her heart—"heart"—skips a beat along with it too, but—

Betty's throat burns. Burns as if molten gold was forcibly poured down her throat, in fact. Next to her, Ram reaches out for Subaru's hand, her expression softened with grief. Betty begins with, "Otto, what is—"

The moment Ram intertwines her fingers with Subaru's, her chest heaves—once, twice, before her forehead glows brightly with a brilliant light—and then it flickers away. She lets go as if she were electrocuted, staggering into Emilia, who's tearstained face pales as she catches Ram in her arms.

Hold onto what makes reality worth it for you.

Otto stumbles towards Subaru in shock, standing in front of him almost protectively, as Garfiel cries out, "Ram—"

"R-Ram," Emilia stammers, "Are you—"

Ram gasps, panting and shaking against Emilia. She clenches and unclenches the hand she reached out to Subaru, hissing in pain. With a harsh grunt, she staggers back to her feet, brushing herself off with trembling hands, and she snarls, "Ram may have lost control of herself there for reasons she does not know, but Ram refuses to lose yet another person to be rendered comatose."

She spins around, so quick that she sways where she stands, to face Otto with a single plead— "Spit it out, now. Please."

Subaru-kun is and will always be Rem's hero!

Ram does not and has never had a sister.

Emilia places a steady hand on Ram's shoulder. "It won't come to that," she insists, her gaze flickering to Otto before focusing back on Ram. Ram's face crumbles, but she leans slightly into Emilia's touch. "Promise."

Subaru stirs, ever so slightly.

"It's—it's something that was developed rather recently. That's why even Beatrice-sama isn't entirely sure what it is," Otto replies, the words forcing themselves out of his mouth, rapid-fire. He looks—far away. Distant. Clouded over with exhaustion and dread and that painful, painful deja vu. "A mixture of several potions and then some—not too widespread, something I've never seen before but—"

He shakes his head. A small growl escapes his lips. "That's—besides the point. I—I don't know what it's called, but there've been stories in the merchant circle—stories of a potion that causes people to fall into deep comas."

A muscle in Subaru's jaw twitches, and suddenly it's almost as if the shadows are swallowing him whole—obscuring his closed eyes and pale, parted lips.

It's like the sun can't reach them here.

Otto looks away, finishing with, "Slow at first, but eventually—they land themselves in a deep coma. One where… where the user is trapped in their own mind."

Garfiel's mouth opens and closes in shock. "Why… why would Capt'n be..."

Emilia bites her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. It's a gesture so painfully like Subaru that it hurts. "Did… Subaru drink this, then? Regularly? Is—that why he's—"

"Barusu drank this potion?" Ram frantically glances back at Emilia, and then at Otto. "Barusu drank it, more than once, and none of us ever took notice of this?"

The phantom sensation of Subaru's newly scarred skin under her fingertips, along with the glass of the potion bottles, push Betty out of her own shock— "Yes, Subaru… drank these potions, and—he promised to Betty he'd explain, he promised, but—" He can't wake up. He won't wake up, he—and then a horrible, horrible realization reaches her. "No," she gasps. "No, no, was—was Subaru trying to kill himself, I suppose?"

Otto shakes his head violently. "No. No, of course not. That—" He lurches to the side, grabbing hold of the bedside drawer to steady himself. "I… I don't think so. I never paid too much attention to those rumors, and I certainly don't know everything about this potion. But it's—it's addictive. Meant to assist with sleeping or something of that nature. And Subaru—"

"—had an unused potion hidden in the floorboard," Betty finishes softly. "Empty bottles as well, stuffed underneath our bed, in fact."

Emilia squeezes her eyes shut. Beside her, like a mad dog, Garfiel shakes his head—once, twice, thrice. He gasps for breath, demanding, "How long? Do'y know—'cause… 'cause 's gotta be a lie, how've we gone on this long 'n never—never even—" He deflates, his voice lowering to a whisper, "Capt'n… must've been so sad."

Subaru's plastered-on smiles get painfully familiar, too, the more time you've spent around him.

Beatrice always had to find out Subaru's vulnerability, rather than him going to her. She saw the faint and new scars along his arms, she saw the blood under his nails, and the dead look in his eyes, she saw the potion under the floorboard and the desperate way he searched the whole room for another one.

And in her dreams, in all of their dreams, she was dying.

She was cradling her own body, or Emilia's, or Ram's, or Rem's, and she was watching them die.

She was standing in a forest, screaming out as another enemy-turned-friend killed another friend, sacrificing himself for her—only for her to die pointlessly only moments later. She was running down a long, near endless hall with opened doors and her own guts spilling to the floor—warm and moist and dark red and pink.

"Beatrice?" a voice asks, echoing from far away.

Her own guts—those of a spirit—spilled into the sky in vivid paint strokes, too.

She was crying, and sobbing, and laughing in a sea of darkness, drowning in a love that is not love, because she knows what love is now and maybe she knew it four hundred years ago too, and that isn't love, and these experiences weren't hers—were never hers. Never meant to be shared perhaps, especially viscerally and personally and—

"Beatrice," the voice insists once more.

Is that why Subaru never said a word? He—he felt all of these things, somehow, somehow, and the words could never come out. Who'd believe him? Who'd understand him? Who'd listen and not immediately turn on him for being an incomprehensible monster for dying?

And dying?

And dying.

No, that can't be it—

How, how, how? How? Betty can't—doesn't want to—

She was kneeling in a field of grass then, too—she was crying and sobbing and screaming and so very angry, so very hopeless, so very alone, and that person who loved and did not love her told her that she was worth more than endless death after death after death. How can anyone pick themselves up after that?

...Subaru did.

Betty can't comprehend any of this. She wants it gone, she wants it torn out of her head until only the good remains, she wants Subaru to just escape from all that misery. It doesn't make any damn sense, nothing about it makes sense, don't think don't breathe don't utter a single word—

"Beatrice!" the voice screams, but when the room and everyone else in it filters back into her head, not a single person seemed to have heard that voice.

They're all avoiding each other's eyes anyway.

The sun can't reach them here.

Was that real? Is this real? How much of this is—

How long? Garfiel had asked. Do'y know—'cause… 'cause 's gotta be a lie, how've we gone on this long 'n never—never even—

"This has been happening for… long enough, from the looks of it," Otto answers, quiet, and with a subdued kind of shame, "He would've let this keep going—if it wasn't for Beatrice catching him, and him subsequently falling… unconscious."

Otto's hand moves to brush a stray hair strand from Subaru's contorted face, but he shakes his head and drops his hand right before he does. Ram—he's seen what happened to Ram. "An effect of overdosing. That's… what I think is the reason for the coma. That potion he took—it's likely a mixture of several others in the first place."

Ram inhales sharply. "A mixture of several potions, in order to achieve this specific effect?"

Otto nods, reaching a hand to rub at his temple with a grimace. "Yes," he mutters. "Of course it'd have odd yet dangerous side effects when they're taken."

"Side effects…" Emilia murmurs. Her already pale face pales even further, with the faint, faint, nearly imperceptible and silver light illuminating her just like her silver hair. "So the declining sleep quality, the dreams, the nightmares, the memories… the… coma… those were side effects affecting us in turn, yes?" She clenches and unclenches her jaw. "There must be a way to wake him up, yes?"

"C-Capt'n's not… dead, at least." Garfiel shudders, wrapping his arms around himself. His breaths come out in short, raspy pants, and his legs wobble like he's about to collapse. "I don't wanna do that all ov'r again. I don't want us or Capt'n t' be like this, I don't like any 'f this at all—how powerful is this fuckin' potion? Ain't there an antidote?"

"Emilia-sama. Garf," Ram states softly. She's shaking with exertion and nerves as she moves, quickly, to Garfiel's side. Emilia follows behind Ram, her lips quivering as she's on the verge of collapse herself. "Breathe."

Betty shivers as well, and the room spins, and blurs, and dances in her vision, and nothing feels quite real—it's so dark here. It's so cold here. Abyssal, with a whole void outside, behind the curtains, and when she moves of her own accord to tear them open—

The sky is dark. Cold. Stormy, almost like a whirling mass of shadow threatening to swallow them all whole. And yet, it flickers between a high sun and a bright blue to this—this shadow, tearing at the fabric of their little bubble of reality, and—

Oh. She remembered—the note, the note she wrote—it's gone.

And now outside, the sky is all dark.

A writhing shadow.

Betty realizes this: she wants to forget all that she's learned now. All the death and the pain and misery. She wants to rip it apart with claws and uncontrollable, animalistic anger and despair. She wants to stick her head in the ground, bury her whole body in it, and never wake up.

"Breathe," Ram repeats. Near her, Otto purses his lips like he's trying not to say something.

H-Hurt me… not them… i-it's me you want, r-right?

It's you who needs to back off, Garf!

...ah. That's not entirely Beatrice's feelings, is it?

Ain't there an antidote?

Somehow, a part of Betty knows that the answer is no.

There is no antidote. At least, not in the traditional sense—there is no way to magically cure Subaru's coma with just one sip of an antidote.

"I died. We all died," Garfiel whispers frantically, and he's trembling and gasping and gasping as he says, "I was—k-killin' people an' I—I couldn' stop it, I couldn' stop thinkin' bout it an' I want'd t' forget it—but then I—I—"

You… absolute idiot!

I've seen hell.

Outside the window is just void. Black, bottomless void. Emilia is the only other person to notice, her head turning to the open curtains and the large, grand windows. She doesn't say a word. Neither does Otto, who's still staring at Subaru's sleeping face.

—warped. The world around them is warping, isn't it? Or maybe it's in their head, maybe this is all in their heads. Betty's note is gone, the sky went from blue to abyss—

Ram steps forward and embraces Garfiel, rubbing his back as reassuringly as she can.

I've seen it many times.

I don't wanna have to take this out on you!

Ros… Roswaal-sama… why...

Beatrice can't bear to look, already enough at a loss. And somehow—she can't find the words to describe what's even happening to them, or what's even happened.

Subaru's memories, the dreams, the mansion, too, is all breaking down into—

"I… I don't… everything will be alright. I would assume there'd be a way to wake…" Otto starts, hesitant.

And then his eyes widen. He stumbles back a step or two, and he flinches, hard, and he stammers, "The potion. It's—I know what it's called. It's illegal—or at least, it should be, and it's highly unstable and—"

He exhales sharply, closing his eyes. "It's… it's called… Liquid Memory. It's..."

He stops, as if he can't bring himself to finish.

Emilia makes a face, a hand drifting up to lightly touch her throat. Quietly, hoarsely, Beatrice says, "Of course it should be illegal, in fact. What a… strange name for a sleeping potion, I suppose."

That name. That name. A whole array of horrific implications springs forth from just those two words, and all she could do is hope, and hope that it's not what she thinks it is—but she knows. She knows that there's no possibility that she's wrong in that.

Otto opens his eyes once more, murmuring, "It was more than a sleeping potion. All I know is rumors and theories, but—it… induces dreams based off of the user's desires. Memories, too—all so it could ward off nightmares and send you straight to sleep. That sort of thing… it must be highly, highly addictive."

Subaru's chest rises and falls in an uneven, half-panicked, half-desperate rhythm, as if he's entirely aware of the words spouting from Otto's mouth.

Hold onto what makes reality worth it for you.

Otto, on the other hand, can only look on with a deep, deep sadness across his face. He continues, his voice cracking, "I—only have theories, snippets of information, but—using your own mind to draw upon what makes you happiest, night after night… it would be so easy. It would be so incredibly easy to lose touch with reality and crave that instead. But... eventually—it'd all go wrong. Your mind uses what you're most afraid of, uses your worst memories, responds by transferring them to the people around you, and then—"

He gestures to Subaru. "You're asleep. Comatose. Stuck in your own mind, and I—I have absolutely no idea how Subaru is doing right now, if—if all of that is true. Earlier, he was… vague, about how well his sleep has been or if his nightmares have increased. But with the potion's side effects, we'd… we'd be the ones to feel his nightmares instead anyway. Just like last night. We'd be the ones getting his nightmares while he sleeps as—as soundly as he can in his current state, unless…"

Unless he's also dreaming, at this moment, as he's comatose.

None of them voice that thought; they can't bring themselves to.

Meanwhile, Emilia doesn't peel her eyes off of the writhing storm outside. Pained, she asks, "Did he... really feel that unpleasant that he needed to escape?"

Beatrice sighs, the words she left for Subaru in her note slipping through her fingers—do give Betty a headpat when you wake up!—and so she says, "Why… would you ever want to leave your dreams, if some convenient potion shows you a whole world of your desires, I wonder?"

Her… hea—"heart"—won't stop hurting, as if it's being squeezed. "Why would you ever want to wake up when your reality promises that everyone will... die again someday, I suppose?"

With a sharp gasp, Garfiel pulls away from Ram, gazing at his hands like he still expects there to be blood and bits of flesh. And then he whips around to face Emilia and the window behind her, and he bursts out— "W-What the hell is tha' outside?"

Outside, the sky swirls violently in a storm.

Ram follows Garfiel's gaze, gritting her teeth and freezing in shock. "Yes, Garf," she confirms, furrowing her eyebrows. "It should not be night time, and there certainly should not be a storm either. The weather has been clear today—the sun was high in the sky when we awoke."

"And Betty had left… a note. She'd written it for Subaru earlier," Beatrice offers slowly. "It has been missing since Betty found Subaru, in fact."

Otto's face pales. "I-I don't know what comes next, then," he stutters. He shakes his head violently, as if he's in denial, and stammers frantically, "We already experienced declining sleep quality, and then came the dreams and the memories and now Natsuki-san's comatose and—the effects just gradually worsened over time. If—if it's already this terrible, and our whole sense of reality is affected as well, then I-I really, really do not know what's next to follow."

Emilia makes a small noise—a growl, a snarl, a kind of frustrated and half-strangled sound—and then takes several purposeful steps towards Subaru, her hands glowing with healing magic as her fingers just about hover over his skin. "If that's the case," she says, swallowing, "then we must do something before it's too late."

Ram startles. "Em-Emilia-sama, Beatrice-sama had already stated that—"

"I have to try," Emilia replies through her teeth. "No matter how many times it takes." She takes a deep breath, and then she pleads, "Beatrice, please—please help me. Perhaps with the two of us…"

Quietly, Beatrice steps beside Emilia, her hands glowing a brilliant light, and begins attempting to heal Subaru with Emilia at her side.

It's not going to work. She knows this. But maybe, just this once, just—

A wave of exhaustion hits her, full force. Gasping, stumbling, Betty falls backwards into Otto. Beside her, Emilia shudders, violently, and collapses to her knees. Ram rushes towards Emilia, half tripping on herself, and pulls Emilia up to her feet.

"Beatrice… sama," Otto says weakly, struggling to hold her up as his legs buckle. "Is it… the potion, the potion is—"

Garfiel scrambles to help Otto, slinging one of Otto's arms around his shoulder as he straightens up Beatrice. "Like I said earlier," Garfiel snarls, breathing heavily, shuddering as if expecting to be impaled right through his stomach, "How powerful 's this goddamn potion?" Desperate and frantic, his voice cracks as he continues, "Why's 't—affectin' us like this? 'S a potion. Jus' a potion. Ain't that true? Brotto explained, but—but—"

"This potion is no usual one, in fact," Beatrice snaps. She staggers back, brushing off her dress just to maintain some illusion of normalcy. "Even—even as an absolute abomination of a concoction, no potion should be able to affect everything to this extent."

"But… if this is all in our head…" Emilia starts, reluctantly.

Ram shakes her head, her eyes trailing towards the storm outside the window. "Emilia-sama," she replies, cool as ice, even with the exhaustion pulling at her. "A potion like this should not have interfered with Ram as it had earlier."

The storm outside now shines golden, like molten lava, and the glow of it bounces through the window and casts across each of their faces.

Emilia's expression hardens, ever so slightly.

Subaru twitches violently, his expression contorted in the same way it gets when he's trapped in a nightmare.

Oh. Oh, Betty hasn't seen that expression in a while, hasn't she?

Unless he's also dreaming, at this moment, as he's comatose.

"No," Emilia insists, jaw clenched. "No, no, no. I believe that the lines between reality and—otherwise—are blurring. The storm, the effects we're feeling, right in this instant—the poor sleep and the nightmares and memories are not false. Its effect on Ram's horn, its effect on what's happening right outside of the mansion—that cannot be true with a concoction of this caliber." Her hands squeeze into fists. She turns to Otto, tone sharp—"This is not how a potion like this normally works, yes?"

Otto bites his lip. "Th-that's right, Emilia-sama. Even with the nature of this potion—Liquid Memory—this truly cannot be entirely reality, right?" He pauses. "The only difference is that we're still awake right now, unless…"

He trails off.

"No," Emilia whispers, into the sudden silence that follows afterwards. "This all feels almost as if it were a dream, doesn't it?"

Ram hesitates. Her eyes dart back to Emilia, her hand resting back on Emilia's shoulder as she stammers, "E-Emilia-sama—I suppose that if what you are saying is true, then it is imperative that we—"

They all fall down to the ground, collapsing like ragdolls being tied by their ankles and wrists, folding in on themselves like a house of cards—suddenly unconscious and asleep.

---

Ram may have lost control of herself there for reasons she does not know, but Ram refuses to lose yet another person to be rendered comatose.

Become too lost in the potion's positive effects, and that increases your chances of—

The potion needs to be taken only every so often. Too much, and the negative effects are—

If—if it's already this terrible, and our whole sense of reality is affected as well, then I-I really, really do not know what's next to follow.

If you need to, in the worst case scenario of the potion going haywire, you have to—

I have to try, no matter how many times it takes.

Who'd believe him? Who'd understand him? Who'd listen and not immediately turn on him for being an incomprehensible monster for—

Even as an absolute abomination of a concoction, no potion should be able to influence everything to this extent.

We'd be the ones getting his nightmares while he sleeps as—as soundly as he can in his current state, unless…

Is that why Subaru never said a word?

Unless he's also dr—

Betty wishes that you could just tell her—she won't hurt you at all.

—shows you a whole world of your desires, I wonder?

If that's the case, then we must do something before it's too late.

When I wake up… I promise that I'll explain.

...if this is all in our head…

Why would you ever want to wake up when your reality promises that everyone will... die again someday, I suppose? Why—would you ever want to leave your dreams—

Capt'n… must've been so sad.

---

Subaru comes to, and he finds himself lying down in a field of lush green grass.

Those voices, echoing around and around and around in his head… huh. He wonders, really, what it all means, but it's all so distant! There's nothing to worry about here, is there? Nothing at all.

He hopes these voices figure out whatever it is they were struggling with.

The sun shines overhead brightly, making everything glow in that warm afternoon light. The buzzing of cicadas drones in the background, as annoying as ever and yet so familiar.

The grass, too, feels reassuring as it grazes against his skin delicately.

But everything here is so… welcoming. Every inch of it, from the red-orange sky to the wonderfully sunny day. Really, he could just sit here for hours and be perfectly content.

And that's exactly what he does, long past the point where he loses track of time.

It's nice to be able to just relax for once, and to not have to do anything at all. Was it really that selfish to just want to be able to rest, anyway? Was it really selfish to rest in the first place? Especially when it was something he's so deprived of normally.

But… he has people that need him. He can't just leave them. He can't stay here forever.

So he jolts himself upright, ready to leave—ready to wake up. Doesn't he have to? He needs to. He can't stay asleep right now, not when the others are—not when he's—

Who is he? Where is he? How is—

Tender, gentle arms brush against Subaru's sides from behind, before dancing into a loving embrace—and suddenly everything he ever thought and everything he ever knew reaches a halt.

It's so delicate at first—delicate and soft and warm and welcoming—that Subaru can't help but slump into the comforting presence. He casts all his wariness aside along with it, like a soothing balm to whisk all his worries away.

Like a single bandaid to a festering wound.

"Rem," he croaks. Even now, seeing her feels so, so surreal. Feeling her like this is surreal, as a small hand gently strokes Subaru's hair.

"Yes, Subaru-kun," she whispers. "It is your Rem, here to welcome you back. Would… would you follow Rem, please?"

So Subaru does. Because of course he could spare a few moments for Rem, at least. She means the world to him!

Rem releases her hug, directing them towards a blanket, and motions for Subaru to sit right next to the picnic basket lying by their feet.

Oh. Rem must've laid this out earlier! How sweet of her to prepare for such a lovely occasion!

Even though Subaru doesn't deserve it. He really, really doesn't.

…why is he thinking that? He's happy here.

Without any hesitation, he makes himself at home on the blanket. Rem joins right after he settles down, sitting straight across from him. Gracefully, she flips open the basket, and with that, the pleasant aroma of freshly baked goods wafts into his nose.

Rem looks at him expectantly, eagerly, as if waiting to see if he likes it. Subaru gives her a thumbs up and a cheeky grin before he snatches up one of the many treats.

It feels a bit strange—mushy, a bit wet, crumpling slightly in his hand. Oh well. This is Rem, after all, anything she makes tastes wonderful!

So, regardless, he plops it into his mouth without much thought.

Saccharine goodness bursts on his tongue, but the taste reminds him of something familiar. Something that he can't quite remember—and it irks him, for a split second, before it's pushed away from his mind.

That doesn't really matter, after all!

"Ah…" Subaru pauses to savor the flavor.

And maybe partially to tease Rem, duh.

Just as expected, her eager expression heightens in anticipation. He takes a deep breath, before breaking out into a laugh. "It's really, really good!"

Another laugh—soft, and one that rings like the sound of bells—comes from beside him.

When he turns to look, there's nothing there.

A fine grainy texture grits against his tongue. He tries to ignore it, but he can't help but feel that—he has to drink something. It's incessant, pounding at his head, and when he swallows, it feels like sandpaper abrasively rubbing against his throat over and over again.

He makes a quiet effort to clear it, but that only makes it worse. Saliva pools in his mouth, his eyes watering as he struggles to swallow again.

Rem tilts her head in confusion, worry shining in her eyes. "Are you alright, Subaru-kun?"

"Y-Yeah, no worries, Rem," Subaru stammers. "Your hero is fine and all, I—I'm the one who should be worrying about you anyway." Nervously, he rubs the back of his neck and makes a pathetic attempt to downplay his discomfort. "Did you, ah, bring anything to drink? I'm… just a bit thirsty, is all."

Something whispers to him: Downplaying things like you always do—

Shut up.

Rem passes him a glass of red wine, before also pouring herself one. He isn't one for drinking, but Ram's here and everything's alright and his throat is not so he has to drink.

"Sayonara, Subaru-kun," she says with a small smile, raising her glass to him. It rings odd hearing that from her, but—

Actually, had anyone in Lugnica said that? Surely they have, since they speak a language eerily similar to Japanese… but why sayonara, of all words, at this moment?

No. It's fine. That doesn't matter either. Rem probably picked up the word sayonara from him anyway, in the least likely scenario of her not knowing it already. So what if she used it in a weird context?

That doesn't matter.

Greedily, he tips the glass back and gulps the liquid down.

Alcohol really, really wasn't something he had any interest in otherwise, but his eager lips race to meet the edge of the glass as fast as they can without spilling it. Just to get that horrible feeling out of his throat. Just so he could feel better.

No, that doesn't matter. He just felt like trying alcohol with Rem today, that's all!

He swishes it around in his mouth to pick up the few stray particles still left there, but it's oddly… viscous. Or at least, more so then what he was expecting, with almost the consistency of—

He sets the glass down with a strange feeling of unease filling him. Like something buzzing gently under his skin, crying out that this wasn't right.

So he swallows, slowly, with the liquid oozing down his throat. He feels every inch of it inside—relieving the itching, but at the same time, he just. Can't. Breathe.

He steals a glance at Rem, who casually pokes at the food while taking a sip of wine here and there.

She's not having any of the issues he's having. She literally made all of this food for him, she brought out the wine and she arranged this little picnic with just the two of them, and now he's ruining things again? Why did he always have to be the one to have problems? Why did he always make things worse for everyone else?

...why was he even thinking that? He's here to hang out with Rem. He's here to have fun.

He's here to be happy.

Lithe arms wrap around him once again, taking him out of his own thoughts. "Sorry, Rem couldn't help herself," she says softly. "You looked so troubled. You should simply stay here, and I'll be your hero instead. I'll protect you like you have for me. You don't need to worry anymore, I promise."

Subaru can't breathe. "But Rem… you're—"

A finger is pressed into his lips in a shushing motion, and yet something sticky is left in its place. Rem shakes her head with a fond smile on her face. "I'm right here, Subaru." She reaches over, clasping his hand in hers. "Can you feel this? Rem's hand in yours, Rem's pulse in yours—does it feel real to you?"

"I… yeah, of—of course I can. Why are you..." He swallows. Shut up. "Can you… feel my hand too?"

Rem nods. "It's warm… like a mothers loving embrace, but also firm. It's strong like the person who it belongs to, but also scared and worn." She laughs, gently squeezing his hand. There's the shine of red on his skin. "And Rem? Can you describe to Rem how her hand feels, Subaru-kun?"

His stomach churns. His cheeks flush red, red like the crimson Rem left on his hand. Stammering, he replies, "Ah… it's… you always feel warm to me. Your hand too, your—ah, personality. Your hand feels… soft, but strong. You feel safe. Like… like home."

Rem's pulse feels weak, like her heart is barely beating.

Somehow, Subaru's too caught up in the moment to really care about that—too focused one the way she glances at him shyly as her slender fingers fiddle with his wrist, tying something around it.

It's a sort of keepsake, with a soft material that feels as warm as Rem's hand.

Rem laughs, mirthlessly, and then advances towards Subaru until their faces are practically touching—and she's not breathing. He can't stand to look, so he glances down at his wrist to see a yellow bandanna. It's so bright that it glows gold, outlining Rem's face as she asks—

"Am I real, Subaru?"

Subaru can't breathe either. He whispers, "Of course you are, Rem. As real as I am, right?"

Rem jolts as if she had been struck. Did… did he do something wrong? It was just an obvious fact, right? Why did she—

She looks down towards the ground for a split second, a complicated expression contorting her features, before her demeanor changes to something sad.

"Rem… has to go soon, and it's somewhere you can't follow," Rem says, and the gaze she gives him is pleading yet hopeful. She stares him right in the eye as flesh melts off her face in waxy chunks. "Please—for me—remember what's important to you. Remember what makes life worth it for you. You are stronger than you know."

Subaru can't look. He can't look. He turns to the picnic blanket, the food, the wine—and it's all gone. Flickering, glitching, rotting away with the putrid smell of—

He's going to be sick.

"What—what do you mean?" Subaru stammers. "R-Rem? What the hell do you—no." Desperately, he shakes his head, his hands fisting in his hair. His chest rises and falls with a frantic pace, his eyes watering as he half-snarls, half-whispers, "No, I—that's not true. That's not right, that really isn't, that—shut up. Please shut up, be quiet, I—I just got you back, I fucking had you back with me, and I—"

"Do I exist just to please you, Subaru?" Rem asks, almost absentmindedly. "Do I exist just to harm you, Subaru? Does my whole being simply revolve around you, Subaru?"

What? That's not—that's not true. It can't be.

He lunges to hold onto Rem's hand as if that can stop anything. The flesh is twisted and mangled, crumpling underneath his grasp—mushy, and wet, and saccharine. His voice rises to a shriek—"Please, Rem—"

"You can't live in dreams forever, Subaru." Her tone is soft like silk, soft like the bandanna she left around his wrist, yet chiding and mournful at the same time. The words pierce into his soul, carelessly shredding his heart and his insides and—

Rem's body collapses to the ground, limply, like a puppet with all its strings cut.

How very slothful.

A scream viciously claws its way out of Subaru's throat. He's falling, falling—scrambling backwards desperately. This isn't how it's supposed to go. This isn't—so why? Why is this happening—why can't he—

And then he freezes. A hand cups his face, cold, with unnaturally sharp bones gouging into his cheek, and that's when he realizes that that's—that's Rem's—

That's her corpse.

"I love you, Subaru-kun," it whispers to him in its wretched voice, and it sounds of blades scraping against bone, scraping scraping in a horrid chorus of agonized screeches.

"No," he gasps, staggering to his feet, backing away from—from—"No."

Don't think about it. Don't look at it.

He takes another step, and another, until he's turned around and broken into a sprint.

"Where are you going, Subaru-kun?" it shrieks behind him, half-sobbed—tortured. "Don't you love me?"

He slams his hands over his ears, on the verge of retching.

Haha. Love? Love? When she's—she's—

That's not her. It can't be her, not like this, not like this—

Run. Just run. And he does—runs because he doesn't know what else he can do, runs because he can't stand to see her like that, runs because he's a coward.

"Why did you let them forget?" it screeches at him. He can hear the rest of her, too—bones snapping and twisting, grinding against one another to form an—an abomination. "Why did you let me die?"

The grotesque thuds of something—viscera slamming against the ground rings in his mind, along with uneven footfalls, if they can even be called that anymore, follows his every step. It's slower than him yet ceaseless, and he's starting to feel tired—so very tired.

Exhausted, even. Eventually, he won't be able to run anymore. It'll catch up to him, and then—he'll wake up then, right? Like—like a normal dream—no matter how terrible or great it is, you wake up at the end. Always.

…normal. As if any of this is normal, as if he deserves to wake up from—

The landscape around him blurs, twists, melts, as if it's unsure of itself.

It flashes through endless incomprehensibilities as it folds and buckles around him, as it vomits out mockeries of shapes and jargon that don't look any more real than obscure figures dancing in the dark. Red bleeds out of the sky like rot, like infected wounds and disgusting corpses and twisted flesh.

Wake up, wake up, why can't I wake up?

Why can't we just wake up?

Sobs wrack his throat as he collapses. But he couldn't—wouldn't—hear her chasing anymore, and, trembling on his knees, he desperately hopes that he was lucky enough to outrun it. Outrun R—

The bandanna tied around his wrist is gone.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Blissful nothingness—maybe he can at least enjoy the rest of his sleep tonight with just that.

"Subaru, are you quite alright?" a voice chimes.

The dream must have changed—or he passed out, however that works, because he sure as shit didn't feel himself get dragged onto what felt like a chair.

He knows he's still asleep, right?

Shoving back the urge to blurt out all of his questions, he bites his tongue and surveys the situation first. The instinctive net of safety he had felt here had been shattered—whatever had just happened with—with Rem and—

That wasn't supposed to be possible. He hadn't had a nightmare in… or, well, since he started drinking the potion.

Since he started drinking Liquid Memory.

Numbingly cold air blows onto his face, stinging like needles lightly being pressed against his skin—uncomfortable but tolerable.

He squints open his eyes, trying to not make it obvious he was already awake.

No, that's not right. This is still a dream.

He blinks. A figure hovers over him, concern plastered on their face, but the details are blurry, clouded by a pale sheen—he blinks again. His eyes really must not be working right.

...why is the bandanna missing? Didn't Rem give it to him, like a good luck charm? Why is it gone?

Why is he suddenly in this chair?

But at least this figure isn't that—monstrosity that was chasing him. The voice sounds familiar, sounds like Emilia, but he didn't want a repeat of what happened with Rem. So he won't—can't—make any assumptions yet.

Why did that happen? That wasn't supposed to happen. Maybe—maybe he would be left alone if he just pretended to be unconscious.

How fucking pitiful does he have to be to pretend to be asleep during a dream?

...is this a dream...?

"Subaruuu," she whines, slightly slurred, "This isn't funny, I know you're awake, you dunderhead."

Okay. Okay, so it seems he doesn't really get a choice here. But—at least she doesn't sound hostile. Just…

Off.

Subaru blinks his eyes open, fully this time, and takes a few seconds to adjust—only to be met with a face of blinding white almost touching his own. He lets out a high pitched yelp and recoils in surprise, jolting himself upright. He knocks over her—Emilia—and she falls to the ground instantly, lying in a crumpled heap.

Or, at least, this has to be Emilia. This probably is Emilia, right?

Dread churns in his stomach, but at the same time… he can't afford to feel all that much right now. He can't afford to dwell on this, on everything. "Ah—sorry," he murmurs out of habit, using the chair to steady his balance before turning to face her.

Emilia… right?

His eyes widen in shock.

Her lips are thin and pale, crystals of ice gently clinging to her eyelashes like dewdrops. Frost had long since nestled into her flesh, giving her an almost angelic glow with the light refracting off of it. Snow dusts the surface of her skin like a fine powder, alongside the hints of blue creeping into her pale extremities—any hints of warmth to her flesh and skin, all the way down to bone, have long since fled.

Her eyes are distant, glassy, darting randomly around without being able to hold any focus.

Until those cold, far away eyes suddenly focus on him, if only for a moment, as she lurches upwards to sit upright from where she is on the ground.

Subaru chokes down a nauseated squeal. "Emilia…"

Emilia nods eagerly, happily, as she bursts into a wide, triumphant smile. It reveals her teeth—like icicles sharper than blades—as her eyes drift around the room again. In her lap, she anxiously fidgets with her twitching fingers.

Then the smile suddenly switches to a childish little pout. "Subaruuu," she sing-songs. "I've been waiting for you for so long, and you just left me here by myself."

"I…" Subaru starts. He gulps. "I was…"

...what was he doing again?

"I've been waiting so long that I was starting to fear you might not come back," Emilia whispers. Her words come out frigid. "It was scary and lonely here, without you. Everyone always leaves me in the end."

She stops to give Subaru a disappointed look, eyes finally settling on him a second time, only for her to clasp her hands together and dissolve into bright laughter. "But you are here now, so it's okay! You asked to go on a date with me last night, and I'm reaaaally happy to see you keep that promise."

Uneven light glints off the corpse-like eyes that pierce into him, expecting an answer. Expecting him to fulfill a promise, right, but it all feels uncanny and wrong.

Please, do something! Leave, run, get as far as you can from here, we're—we're so so so sorry!

Oh. Oh. Something's tugging at him and his insides and it's screaming at him to get away from her. His entire being screams this, and so he slowly stands up, already backing away slightly. The way she was looking at him, the way that she is looking at him, makes his hairs stand up on end—he has to go. He has to leave. He—

Emilia grabs his wrist, jerking it towards herself.

It hurts, her grip searing into his skin like being inches away from a fire, as it seeps into layers of skin and burns away at his flesh. He can feel the fine filaments of frost trying to burrow into his skin just like—

A small whimper leaves his lips as he tries to pull away, but her fingers only dig into his wrist further, keeping him trapped so easily that it's laughable. He wants to laugh. He wants to sob—and then hurt flashes across her face.

Shocked, terrified disbelief, too. But it all melts away as she giggles to herself again, forcibly, as if the idea that he wanted to leave was incomprehensible. Tilting her head playfully at him, little bits of powdered snow dislodge from her pale hair and float down to the floor.

"Subaru, you're always sooooo silly," Emilia chastises him, even more snow falling from her head as she shakes it in disapproval. "That was rather impolite of you. You promised, remember? And you—you promised that you'd explain once you woke up, right? Are you reaaally awake now?" Her voice turns shaky as she drifts closer to him, close enough to kiss him, as she continues, "Or perhaps you want to leave me... again?"

It… almost makes him feel bad. It—

What—what the hell is he supposed to do in this situation? It's his dream. He should be able to make it all nice and pleasant without even trying! He should be able to wake up, but he can't. Why is everything going so wrong, why is it—it's never been like this until now.

He can't even fucking think straight.

It—had only been a sip at first—just one tiny, itty bitty sip every night, right before bed. It had helped, it really had, and even that small amount had been enough to keep his dreams from becoming nightmares.

But then he got greedy.

"Subaru!" Muffled yet loud words break his train of thought, and—what… was he thinking about, again? "A-Are you even paying attention to me anymore, Subaru? Is something the matter—d-did I do something wrong? I-I know I'm always so useless, always bringing people down with me, but you have to tell me these kinds of things, Subaru, are—"

I don't want you to leave me either, Emilia, he thinks, suddenly. Never.

He's had that thought far too much… isn't that right? And now Emilia is… Emilia is like this.

"I…" Subaru swallows, sitting back down. Numbness spreads along his core—along his heart. "Yeah, I was… just thinking. That's all. Just got lost in my head for a bit."

He could play along for now, right? Try and make the best of this, since he could be here for… longer than the normal amount. Before, it was just around the normal eight hours of sleep, right? And now, well—he's been through worse. He can make it through.

Natsuki Subaru didn't ever back down easily. He's always been a stubborn piece of shit, really.

...what? Play along with what, again? It's just Emilia. He's supposed to be happy.

Remember what's important to you. Remember what—

What does that even mean? There's nothing more important than this. Hanging out with people like Rem and Emilia and all the rest of his friends—where everything's fine and everyone's alive and they're all having so much fun—is practically a dream come true!

Why would he ever want it to stop?

Emilia giggles. She seems to do that a lot—how adorable! "It's so amusing to find that you always have such strange thoughts and say the most obscure things." Her giggling melts into a smile, and it widens to a painful extent. It practically splits apart her face.

Her eyes shine with bright, bright tears.

"I can't do anyyyything on my own. I'm nothing on my own." A laugh bursts out of her again. "My apologies! I'm always complaining like a child aren't I? But Subaruuu, I still want to please you even so!"

And then her tears eyes turn predatory once more, and something more… frightening flickers in her gaze. "You know that night," she whispers suddenly, "Our first kiss… we never got to finish it, did we? Or—I-I finished it for you, aaactually!"

She bursts into a sob, before abruptly grabbing at his shoulders in a death grip. He won't move. He can't move. Her mouth curls upwards, twisted and rabid as she accuses, "But you didn't even return the gesture, Subaru." Blinding light reflects off of her sharp, desperate grin—wide and gaping and desperate, greedy, like the maw of a wild, abused animal. "My apologies! Now, we have another chance now to do it right. I-I'm trying to be someone that you'll love, Subaru! I'm trying to grow up."

Unceremoniously, she lunges at Subaru, pressing her lips into his without warning. Leaning into him—blistering cold prys open his mouth and forces its way inside in a horrid rendition of that day.

But when a boy and a girl kiss, it makes a baby, right?

He can't—he can't do this, he can't—

He's told himself so many times that that wasn't their first kiss, that no one will ever remember that but him, that the kiss that really mattered was the chaste one he shared with her that didn't reek of death and—

Forcefully he shoves her off himself and chokes out cold air—and despite his best efforts to not look, he still catches a glimpse of her—

Lips moving frantically, whispering words he hears and yet absolutely refuses to acknowledge, her face twisting in shock and horror and genuine surprise—as if she couldn't fathom why, as if she didn't even understand how he could ever hurt her.

As if she didn't understand what was even happening—as if she had absolutely no control here.

She's betrayed, devastated as if he himself had stabbed her in the heart. Even if he knows it's not her—and he knows full well that this isn't the Emilia he fell in love with—it still makes him feel so guilty.

This. This can't be the Emilia he knows, like how that wasn't the Rem he—

Falling backwards, Emilia's body shatters into millions of tiny shards the moment it hits the ground.

He had pushed her. It was an accident—it was self-defense, he—he wants to vomit, to do anything to get this wretched feeling out. More than anything, he wants to w—

Wake up.

No, he can't, he can't! This is important. This is important. This is everything he's ever feared, everything that's ever haunted him and will haunt him.

Emilia had whispered, right before she shattered across the ground, I—I didn't mean to—I can't control th—this isn't your fau—

But that wasn't his Emilia. That wasn't his Rem either. Rem's comatose, and Emilia—Emilia can't be here, in his dream. If she's stuck with him here, then—

A dense fog rolls in, blanketing everything in an oppressive silence. Faint, muted sounds come from all around him, and threatening shapes dance in the mist casting imposing shadows that sway unsteadily.

The sound of laboured breaths draws ever nearer to him as a darkening spot makes its way out of the depths of the fog. He tenses, readying himself to run or fight if needed—just… just like before. It takes far longer than he cares for, his entire body trembling all over, and that figure, that thing, comes so goddamn close before he realizes—

It's Ram.

She's limping, hands pressed onto her red-stained abdomen. But besides that, she seems… normal.

Too normal.

It doesn't seem like she's noticed him yet—she's more just stumbling in his general direction, her gaze glazed over in a way that's half-dead.

He swallows down the fear bubbling in his gut, and tries to think. What should he do, what even could he do? What's happened to everyone? This isn't—this isn't supposed to be—

There's no point—no point at all in prolonging the inevitable. Maybe this is just well deserved karma for all the nightmares he's been avoiding, all the problems he's been shoving away and unable to deal with because what the fuck is he supposed to do?

Ram stumbles, catching herself right before she smashes against the ground.

He swallows again.

How the hell is he ever going to face things head on when he's not even allowed to make a single fucking mention of it all?

But… but… when he's done, can he wake up? He knows he deserves this, knows he's guilty, but that's just wistful thinking and he knows that too. And yet, maybe if he pretends that all of this is for a reason, maybe if he pretends that this is all for a specific goal that he can just accomplish and he'll wake up like nothing happened, he can feel better about it. Because if he doesn't, this is all for nothing, and it's all his fault—

"Ram," Subaru rasps, and she freezes and whirls to face him with the grace of a swan with its wings crumpled beyond repair.

"Baru—su?" Her voice wobbles, but she sounds… relieved. Even so, even with the way she stands still, strained tremors running through her body—it all clashes with her stubbornness and pride, ridding her of all the self-assured confidence she normally carries herself with.

The dream world has made her weak.

They're going to be hurt again.

Silence lingers in the air. He doesn't know what to say—doesn't know what he could or should even say. His lips move to make sounds, but the words die in his mouth.

They're going to be hurt again.

Ram takes the silence with indignation, and a horrific, familiar sense of camaraderie. "How rude," she teases. "To… just stare." Coughs wrack her form, as if even pushing out simple words is strenuous. She presses harder at her abdomen, wincing as red leaks between her fingers. "It seems… even now… that Barusu is… as useless as ever."

She stumbles, staggering into him and sending them both crashing to the ground in a tangled mess of limbs, with her red-soaked form atop his own. She's pale, her skin papery and barely clinging on and just the slightest touch could shred it to pieces. Her fingers twitch sporadically, and he catches sight of—

Something wet presses against him. He shifts his body, turns his gaze to get a better view, and—fuck.

Fuck.

Shoving his face away from that thing, pressing his cheek into the ground with a deep, strangled breath, he desperately squeezes his eyes shut as grotesque, moist mush leaks onto him, flowing onto his own flesh and crying out with mushy squelches. Echoing around in his head, like an agonizing, horrific version of the sound of water being wrung from fabric. His throat clamps itself shut, locking away his screams—

Just like the way Ram stares back at him, wide-eyed and nearing death, unable to scream yet so desperately needing to.

He's seen this so many times now, over and over and over again, long since burned to the back of his retinas. Yet he can't look at her as she hacks and wheezes—he can still hear it, even if he turns his eyes away, even if he closes them tight like it'll just disappear. The grating sound of liquid pooled at the bottom of her lungs makes every single gurgled cough sound of absolute misery and death.

More viscera streams out with every single pitiful gasp for air.

It's in his fingers, stuck between his fingernails—wet stickiness he can't get it off—and it won't stop. It just keeps coming, far beyond what any person should ever have, until he's just laying in a puddly mound of moist innards. He's going to drown—to choke on it as juicy sludge runs down his own windpipe like a tumorous clot sapping away at his ability to breathe.

"S-Sthhp." Strangled, revolting noises twist themselves out of his raw throat as he desperately tries breathe, tries to speak, warbled gags and babbles bubbling out instead—"Plthhh."

Stop hurting me.

But Ram isn't a fucking coward, she won't fucking stop looking at him, her tearstained face contorted in horror and repulsion and so, so much regret.

I'm sorry, she mouths, her throat far too choked up to make any noise. We're—we're sorry. If we could have known sooner, if you were not constrained by—

I… refuse to lose anything—anyone—else.

But in vain, she tries to push herself off him, her hands shoving at his shoulders and her legs trembling from where she's towering over him—but she still won't move an inch. With the sheer terror bursting along her features, the dripping finally stops, and her body gives out against him, limper than it already was.

Staring into the fog, soaked head to toe in mushy chunks of blood, sticking to him like glue—he lies beneath Ram's corpse, too exhausted to move. To do anything.

He whips his head to the side as he vomits up his insides.

It comes out red.

Subaru catches his breath. He gently pushes Ram off him and sits up. Warily, he keeps staring. Staring at this—this corpse of his friend—as if waiting for it to come and try to kill him again, or turn into another fucking monstrosity.

That's how the story always ends, right?

...nothing happens.

Everything is quiet.

It could almost be peaceful if he ignored her. It's almost like they're just having a sleepover together, like normal teenagers in a movie or something—laying side by side, staring up at the ceiling, gasping into the silence. He could reach over right now, grasp her hand and hold it gently or wrap his arms around her like they're just going to sleep, right?

...fuck. What the fuck is wrong with him? That's a lie. As if he could find any of this peaceful.

Can he wake up now? When will it be enough? Just let it be over. Just let this be done with. What more does this whole world want from him? His blood, his guts, his sanity, his memories, his enemies-turned-friends, his love, his hatred, his—

No. Shut up. Stand up. Better him than anyone else. Better that he keep going to find a way out of this. You need to—

A blink, and the world lurches, spotlights shifting all around him. He brings an arm up to shield his face, rubbing at his eyes. Why is he…

Ram's in his arms, her delicate body cradled against his own—any evidence of her wounds is gone. With her ashen features adorned in makeup, dressed in a beautiful, flowing blue gown, and with her signature purple ribbon in her bright pink hair—

She isn't breathing.

He stumbles. His hands tremble and his shaking arms can't hold her any longer, and—

Her body tumbles to the ground, like a puppet with her strings cut, her limbs splaying out carelessly.

Slothful. Slothful. Again, and again, and again. Like her goddamn sister, splattered in red and blue and drowning in the depths of her own useless love.

Several beams of light snap to focus directly on him.

His vision goes pure white, his eyes watering from the intensity. He freezes in place, muttering deliriously, his gaze locked on the corpse on the dark, wooden stage, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm—I'm—"

What the fuck is this? What the fuck is he—

Ram's corpse disappears, sinking into the shadow he casts along the stage.

The light focused on him flashes once, twice, to the sound of his heartbeat.

No. No, he's always been an actor, hasn't he? A performer. Pretending everything's okay, pretending like he hasn't just killed himself, like he hasn't just died, like he can't ever come close to doing horrible, awful things ever again, like he's in a story where he gets everything he wants instead of—

Whispers emanate from the direction of the blazing glare, but he can't understand a single thing they say. It all sounds like pure gibberish.

Subaru will never be able to be intimate with the people he loves. Not with the walls he puts up. Not with the walls that've been built around him, clogging up his throat and squeezing his heart until he can't say:

I can Return by Death.

I've died. Over and over and over again ever since I've come into this world.

Satella and the Witch of Envy gave me this power.

I have her love.

...I feel love for her too.

Subaru's thought about it. Subaru's fantasized about being able to confess it all. He prepared all sorts of speeches in his head about it, depending on who he told it to.

The whispers coming from the direction of the lights grow louder.

He'll never be able to say anything about Return by Death. Not with ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand, one hundred thousand, one hundred million deaths. Even if that taboo was just gone, even if he could finally find the words to explain, he isn't entirely sure he'd even bother anymore.

The whispers grow louder.

The longer this goes on, the more they'd all be crushed if they found out the truth about him.

They already know. They know about everything. From that street in the capital of Lugnica, to the mansion, to the forest and that cliffside and Arlam and Sanctuary. They might as well put the pieces together now!

All they have to do is put the fragments of their minds together, right?

Remember it all?

The whispers grow louder, and louder, until they verge on hissing and shrieking and—

He gasps, "Stop—just fucking stop already." And so the whispers stop. In the sudden silence, his voice shakes—it's so hoarse. His throat is so dry. "Please. I—"

Trailing off, he finds himself viciously dragged into the abyss of his own thoughts. His mouth hangs open, but he doesn't know what to say. The room spins around him—his brain so sluggish that everything within it is all jumbled together.

How pitiful was it that he couldn't even do that right? And that—that any of this even happened in the first place?

A clicking sound ripples across the stage. He flinches—and the spotlights dim down to a reasonable level, as if they heard his pleas.

He turns and looks towards the source.

Several gaseous forms, composed of blurry scribbles and uncertain features, stand at the base of the stage. They appear so distant, and yet so close at the same time, as if an invisible barrier divided them—even if they were only a couple feet away.

Their heads, or what could be equated to heads, bob up and down, following his every movement, and from their eye sockets spill the light which had been assaulting him. Somehow, he just can't focus on them no matter how hard he tries. Every time he comes close to being able to, they flicker and become incomprehensible once again.

They look sad.

They look like incomprehensible monsters.

And then a long, spindly extremity reaches out towards him.

How many fingers does it have? He can't tell. He can't even make out his own hands. He can't make out his own face or his guts or his thoughts or where he even is, either. All he knows is that this creature's hands constantly appear and reappear—are they even fingers, or something else? It's… mesmerizing. It's—

Natsuki Subaru is just some actor who affects everyone with the choices he makes.

No, wait, that can't be true, this can't be real, this isn't—

A hand, entirely made of shadow, pierces through it—splitting it into swirls of fine mist as inky splotches of darkness bleed down from the sky, consuming these distant, incomprehensible figures. Settling on the ground, the shadow and its liquid form begins to coat everything—rapidly rising in depth, spilling over the entire stage and heading towards him in a flood.

Subaru moves to take a step back—as if that would fucking matter in the slightest. As if he had any control in the first place.

It doesn't matter anyway.

And so, he's consumed in it, already covered in shadow from head to toe. It's sticky, possessive, grabbing at his ankles and squeezing at his heart. As if that's supposed to be reassuring.

It doesn't belong here.

No—no, that's not right. It does belong here. Only because—well, he didn't fucking ask for this. He was given the power to die, to restart, from zero, and it was given to him by—

"Satella," Subaru rasps.

Silver hair. Pointed ears. A dark, shuddering veil over her mournful gaze, and she's wrapped up in the same darkness she's brought with her. She whispers, right as the shadow eases its grip on him, second by second, until it lets go entirely—"I do not have much time. I'm sorry, my love. I—"

She bites her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.

Her words—her goddamn words alone—are grating, as if that phrase, that love, had been repeated thousands of times each, with different emphasis and volumes compiled into one.

Echoing, thousands and thousands of them, screeching and demanding for attention, for love, in an amalgamated symphony being forced right through his heart and brain and guts and—

Gasping, wheezing, Subaru hisses, "What the hell do you mean? Calling me 'my love' after—after all of this?" He's shaking, with anger, with frustration, curling in his stomach and burning up his insides. "Some love you've got, after forcing me to go over all my goddamn traumatic experiences again, after making me go through this hellish nightmare sequence of all my friends just—"

Reaching up to his bloodied hair, he yanks at the strands desperately, finally bursting out into a scream— "This is all your fault, isn't it?! It all started with you, you're the reason why I can't tell anyone, and then you fucking tell me to just love myself like it's that easy after everything you've done?! You're just going to kill them all because they've seen my memories, aren't you?!"

Subaru falls to his knees with a hard thud against the wooden stage.

Panting, he curls his arms around himself, and he thinks—

I went too far now.

He's so powerless. He's as powerless as he's always been! It's always a goddamn loop. An encore of a dying dream—one where he just regurgitates his own useless words, looping back around to self-loathing and countless, stupid mistakes he keeps doing over and over again.

...the shadows dwell in the spaces all around him.

"They don't remember," he cries out, pressing his forehead into the ground like that'll make it explode with the force of it. "They don't, the others don't—they haven't fully registered it yet, haven't they?! Don't kill them for that, please don't hurt them for that, just hurt me. Just hurt me, hurt me, don't take it out on them. Please—please!"

He's built back up with love, love, and more love, only to crumble back down again and again and again. Doesn't it get boring? Doesn't it get annoying, going around in circles and taking one step forward just to take a hundred million steps back? Doesn't it get annoying watching a fucking teenager destroy himself again and again just to put on a show? Just to fill up novel after novel after novel? He's just so—

Satella bites at her lip.

She keeps silent.

And then the shadow recedes, entirely this time, fading and dissipating until it's just him and Satella and a dimly lit stage—consisting of a cardboard backdrop of the Emilia camp's mansion itself, surrounded by a storm swirling around in a golden sky.

Golden like the potion.

…the potion. The potion. Fuck. It all turned out like this because of that thing.

But Subaru knows that pointing fingers won't do anything. Subaru knows he can't do anything. But he's so, so tired, and it boils over into—"You… you had to have done something," he whimpers, his voice cracking, "This is your fault."

He's lying. He's telling the truth. He's—

He can't tell anymore.

Satella flinches.

Shaking her head with a somber expression on her face, she crouches down, meeting Subaru eye-to-eye. "It was not my doing," she says softly. A pause, and then she continues, quiet, "At least… in the sense that I was not the one who drank the potion."

Haha. She's really going there? She's really gonna—

Subaru slams his fists against the wooden stage. He continues, again and again and again, until a shadow hand grasps at his fingers and gently pulls them apart. The darkness curls over him, cold and suffocating, and yet—

Like it's trying to be welcoming.

It immediately eases again after that thought.

"So you're saying this is all my fault," Subaru says, numb. "You're blaming me for all of this."

This is his fault. This is Satella's fault.

This is his fault. It always is.

The potion tasted so sweet, didn't it?

"No. Your choices matter," Satella murmurs. "Your choices have always mattered, and yet—while you must accept responsibility for your actions, not everything is your fault. I can try to—"

He bites down on his tongue. Blood sticks to his fists, and his hair, and it runs down his face in wet, sticky clumps. He laughs, high-pitched and desperate. "You have the audacity to say my choices matter, all while you stop me from even vaguely mentioning anything about Return by Death?"

Satella shakes her head again, violently this time. The stage lights flare, so bright that it burns his eyes, and then it dims back down to that suffocating darkness. "I—I had meant to protect you from those who wish to use you, should you have confessed about Return by Death earlier from now. There is no excuse for causing you and everyone around you pain, no excuse for killing any of you simply because you uttered those words, but I can say that… that…"

Her face contorts, exactly and yet nothing like the way Emilia's face crumples right before she breaks into sobs. She whispers, hoarsely, "Would you have trusted the Subaru several months ago with such a secret? Would you trust that, should your secret be leaked in the case that you are forced to give it, that this knowledge being spilled wouldn't result in more suffering later on?"

The Subaru several months ago was a goddamn idiot who obsessed over Emilia and got drunk on the idea that everyone he saved owed him something.

And… and if he was ever tortured in order to give away Return by Death, if he ever spilled out those words unwillingly…

Of course Satella thinks with all the warped logic of a witch—well-intentioned, horrific, and painful all at once.

It's… almost sad.

"No," Subaru grits out. "I wouldn't have trusted my past self. But even then—I've changed. You want me to love myself, you want me to depend on others, but how am I supposed to break out of this loop when I have to dance around the fact that we've sacrificed so much just to get through every obstacle?"

His voice cracks. "How… how am I supposed to solve every life-threatening problem that comes my way without any help in that way? I'd just keep dying… and I-I wouldn't be able to tell the people I care about that I know all these things I shouldn't, that they should still trust me because I've—I've—"

It's all his fault. It's all his—

The words die in his mouth again. But he shudders, and he wheezes out, "The others. They're going to die, aren't they. They—know about Return by Death. I broke your taboo. They're—they're gonna—" He shakes his head violently. "Help me," he rasps. "Help me."

Subaru only realizes now that his forehead is pressing into the stage, that he's still on his knees and almost in this sort of deep bow in front of Satella—

Her cold, cold hands gently cup his cheeks, bringing him back upright. Her eyes are a bright, empty amethyst—the same and yet different to Emilia's.

He's thought that way too much. He's dwelled on Satella's love for him and his love for her far too much and far too little.

"The potion's properties—of using your own memories against you—and your own history and the taboo placed on you in this world do not mix well," Satella explains softly. Her thumbs brush away at the tear stains on Subaru's face. "That is why the potion has been so catastrophic for you and everyone in the Emilia camp. If you were anyone else, the potion wouldn't have been nearly this powerful. However... I assure you that I will be able to ease the pain of this—at least the best I can."

"You're lying," Subaru whispers, searching her gaze frantically. "You're lying."

It's my fault.

It's your—

The stage lights flash once, like a beating pulse. Satella shakes her head, guilt pulling apart her face like tearing seams along cloth. "No. You are correct in saying that I am the reason you are here, suffering. But... you are wrong in other aspects."

The breath rushes out of Subaru's lungs.

Satella lets go of Subaru's cheeks like it burns, taking several steps back. She glances away, at the stage's background—a hand-painted mural of the mansion in the midst of a golden storm.

"This was… enlightening," she continues quietly. Her arms wrap around herself in a gesture so painfully similar to the way Subaru does. Her entire body gives a violent little twitch, her arms tightening her grip on herself as she mutters, quicker now, "Because the taboo prevents anyone from learning about Return by Death through your words, this has made your potion-created dreamscape so intense—along with that perverse warping of reality."

Satella curls in on herself as her eyes flicker back to Subaru—hollow and quietly desperate and so, so sad. "Because of the potion, your loved ones have seen your memories, and your loved ones are experiencing your dream world—and in those memories and dreams are your words."

She sucks in a breath, before shakily mumbling, "I can Return by Death. I'm tired of dying again and again. Doesn't it get annoying?"

...is that really what Subaru sounds like?

He recoils away from her. Her eyes widen ever so slightly, and so she takes another step back, almost timid. "There is a reason why learning about your ability through anything but your words is a loophole, Subaru," she whispers. "It is meant to be a failsafe, exactly like how your entire ability is meant to be a failsafe—but because of the potion, Liquid Memory… the taboo put in place does not know what to do."

And suddenly, from the darkness, an audience that Subaru didn't know was there bursts into applause, like fireworks bursting along a starry sky.

"You want to save them all, don't you," Satella states, almost fond underneath the mourning in her tone, "But I had told you before—to love yourself, correct? I… understand now that this taboo no longer is as much of a benefit to you, especially with Liquid Memory. At the very least… those closest to you, those that you can trust—those are the ones that you want to confess to, yes?"

It's… it's my fau—

No. He can't be the only one.

Satella… almost nothing about her makes sense, but this… maybe this truth is the one thing that isn't so nebulous.

He can't let himself go back to using himself and his lives like a tool again.

Subaru laughs brokenly. "And it took this long for you to realize that about the taboo, huh," he says, voice cracking. "I… of course I want to save everyone. But I—"

He swallows. Dead and hollow, he confesses, after a pause, "I'm tired… of feeling this way. I'm—I'm so scared. Do you—" He swallows again. "How much of my life is set in stone, Satella? Is this… all there is?"

He's still stuck on this stage. He's still stuck performing. Maybe he's still drunk on the feeling of being needed—maybe he's never changed at all from that same stupid little kid.

...how many times has he had that single thought?

And then there's a weight around his wrist—a flash of a yellow bandanna tied neatly at his hand.

As soon as he glances at it, it's gone.

Satella straightens herself upright again, staring down at the stage floor instead of Subaru. Her shadowy veil ripples and shifts around her face as if she's hiding away. "I may have given you Return by Death," she says, gently, "but ultimately, I do not control any of your actions. I do not control your destiny as much as you think I do."

She gives him a rueful smile, gesturing all across the stage. The cardboard backdrop, the hand-painted mural of the mansion and a golden storm—it's changed to a near-empty, familiar park with pink cherry blossoms. "Remember? This is your story, as much as it is anyone else's. You are stronger than you know."

…didnt… didn't the Rem in this dream say that?

Subaru shakes his head. "N-no, I—" he gasps. "I'm weak. That's the only way a power like this would work—if I was weak and it was so painfully easy for me to die. I can just barely change anything, and that's just because I can go back in time and redo it all. Without anyone else, without this, I'm nothing. It's not like I matter as much as Emilia or—or—"

I-I know I'm always so useless, always bringing people down with me, but you have to tell me these kinds of things, Subaru, are—

It was scary and lonely here, without you. Everyone always leaves me in the end.

I-I'm trying to be someone that you'll love, Subaru! I'm trying to grow up.

I—I didn't mean to—I can't control th—this isn't your fau—

"The—the Emilia in this place," Subaru rasps. "In this dreamscape. She—"

I'm sorry. We're—we're sorry. If we could have known sooner, if you were not constrained by—

I… refuse to lose anything—anyone—else.

Subaru makes a strangled noise. He slaps a hand over his mouth. "Ram, too. And—Rem, she—"

Do I exist just to please you, Subaru? Do I exist just to harm you, Subaru? Does my whole being simply revolve around you, Subaru?

"Subaru," Satella murmurs. She offers her hand to Subaru, pale and graceful and free of scars. It's still encased in shadow. It's still shaking. "Your physical weakness, compared to the people born and raised in this world, is not all you are. Neither is the fact that you try so hard to save everyone, and have saved everyone."

There's a spotlight shining down on Satella, and even her darkness doesn't push it away. They're sharing the space on the stage, hand in hand.

Subaru stares up at her.

A tear falls from him, landing on the front of his tracksuit.

"In some limited capacity, your loved ones are present in this dreamscape," Satella states. Her hand's trembling so violently, even so. "This world fights against their existence, just as it fights against you, and it is not easy to fight back against it. In that case, I do not know how aware they are of this. I do not know how much control they have at all."

Subaru stays quiet. His mind's spinning, tearing itself to bits and cut threads and mismatched patches—

Why? Why did Satella choose him of all people, when he's the one who's just shoved his problems onto everyone else, just as he's always done?

Why is he the one that returns by death?

Satella's hand still remains outstretched to him. Her veil doesn't quite hide the small, pained smile dancing along her lips, even as it hides the rest of her face now. "I only know that you are not the only one with those same sentiments—that you do not matter. That your actions barely make a difference…" She trails off, giving a soft, light laugh—quietly agonized in every ring of her voice. "You have a willpower stronger than anyone else, Subaru. With an ability that allows you to redo any problem as many times as you need… of course you'd be fit for the sort of power that reflects your determination—your desire to take on any burden to support those you care about."

...ah.

They love you, Subaru.

That's why they believe in you.

He knows. Of course he knows—but after all this time… there's a part of him that doesn't believe it. Doesn't want to believe it. Why would people believe in him when he's so pathetic?

But he doesn't know what to do other than push forward—because as much as he wants to smash himself into pieces, he doesn't want to go back.

He doesn't want to keep looping forever.

"But," Subaru chokes. "All of their lives are on me. You—" His nails dig into his palms. His hands twitch at his sides like he just wants to grasp Satella's outstretched hand. "You brought me here to kill you, and—and you're telling me all of this just so I can care more about myself?"

Satella takes a small step forward. Her other hand—the one that's not reaching out to Subaru—is curled up against her chest, heaving as she sighs out, "You are not a witch, nor are you a warlock. You have not and would not even attempt to destroy the world in the ways I have tried. That is why. I accept my death in order to pay for my crimes." Her voice tightens, shaking in the way that it does when you're trying not to cry. "But you… you are only Natsuki Subaru—a boy who tries so hard to save everyone. Whoever you could've been, should you have chosen other paths… that is not who you are."

More tears fall onto the stage underneath Subaru.

The spotlight on them isn't blinding anymore—it's warm and soft, a pleasant yellow that matches the yellow on Subaru and Satella's clothing.

"You are you," Satella whispers, smiling sadly. "No one around you could possibly replace you, and that fact alone makes you special. And that is why… that is why you can and will fight against this dreamscape, Subaru."

A shudder wracks Subaru's entire body. Teeth chattering, breaths coming out in short gasps, and he hisses, desperate, "B-but outside of this place—do I really have that much of a choice in my fate?" He glances up at her, eyes wide and wild and frantic, darting in between her face and the hand she's still offering him. "Or am I just controlled by your love?"

A silence falls, just for a moment.

And then Satella says, ruefully, under her breath—

"Even if you had accepted a contract with Echidna, and used Return by Death a hundred million times... I would not have stopped you." Subaru wraps his arms around himself, trembling as his knees dig into the stage. Satella continues, growing quieter and quieter and more hollow with every word—"Even if you ran away from the people you know and love—whether for misguided revenge, wanton massacre, or to settle down far away from here with another lover… I would not have stopped you. Even if you had destroyed Lugunica or Priestella or anywhere else in this world through any means, for any reason—I would not have stopped you."

Subaru's gasps ring out in the silence once more.

He wants to grasp Satella's hand. He really, really does, because—

All of this means that the hands squeezing his heart and the hands massacring everyone around him with the words I can Return by Death are gone.

He doesn't trust Satella. He's been hurt by her, more than everyone else he knows—but even then, so many of them have hurt him too.

But… so she does care. And he knew that already, back with the tea party in Sanctuary, but he'll… he'll acknowledge that at least—that she cares about his choice, that she would've let him do anything with Return by Death and just watched from afar.

"As for the love you feel for me… and the love I feel for you…" Satella glances away, her silver hair and dark veil trailing behind her—like a widow at a funeral. Her lips quiver. "I… I suppose that you are not the only one with taboos. Everything about the two of us is… nebulous.

"And right now…" Satella crouches down, now face-to-face with him as she's still offering her hand. "While I have erased the taboo placed on you, preventing you from sharing Return by Death to anyone else… this does not mean that the situation with Liquid Memory is resolved just yet. You…" Her expression crumples, but she continues on steadily, "You must fight your own monsters yourself."

That's right… isn't it?

Turning to that potion didn't magically make all of his problems go away.

He can't just stay here in this world forever.

"...okay," Subaru replies, small and shaky. "I will."

And so he grasps her hand.

Without Return by Death… he would've died on his first day in this world, wouldn't he?

Satella helps him to his feet gently, her skin still cool to the touch—but it's no longer as spine-chillingly cold as it was earlier. "Remember that when you move past this and return to the real world that your ability to return by death is a fail safe. It is a tool that is meant to only be triggered when you're in dire need of it—not something to depend on."

She takes a deep breath, and when she lets go of it, there's a kinder, more joyful smile—as much as it can be on her. "Your life is your own, Subaru. You deserve to live it the way you want."

The light weight of a yellow bandanna settles on Subaru's wrist once more.

And when his eyes trail from that and back to the background of the stage again, it still shows that small park—adorned with cherry blossoms in full bloom—with the night sky shining bright with the moon and the stars.

He catches sight of the constellation he's named after—

Subaru.

"Are…" His voice almost dies in his throat, but he pushes on regardless— "Are you real, Satella? Or are you…"

Satella giggles, bringing a hand to cover her mouth. Her veil shifts, revealing that there's still wet tears along her cheeks. "I'm just as real as you are," she says, perfectly genuine.

A cherry blossom petal, vividly pink, descends from the curtains, landing right in Satella's silver hair.

A quiet gasp sounds. Subaru doesn't know if it's him or Satella—doesn't know when the black and yellow they wear is exactly the same. Even though her colors are the same as his, even though her pointed ears and strands of hair and gentle face and amethyst eyes are the same as Emilia—

She's still just—Satella.

The Witch of Envy.

Another cherry blossom petal falls, and it lands on Subaru's hand—his fingers curling outwards like he's trying to reach for Satella.

Satella tips her head sadly. "It seems… that our time is up now, Subaru…"

Subaru makes a small, strangled noise. "W-wait—" he cries out, "I—I have so much more to ask you—so much more to—"

Her laugh weaves through his words, melodic and playfully lilting, before it fades back to her painfully familiar, grieving self—hands cradled to her chest, heaving with a heavy, regretful sigh. The image of her flickers, glitches almost, as she gives a little twitch.

It's like she's fighting against herself as she stammers, "I-I truly am sorry, Subaru. But I hope—I hope in the end, that you really do find yourself." She looks up at him, her pale face flushed pink in her sobbing. "I hope… in the end… that—that you understand why things have to be this way."

More and more cherry blossom petals fall—fall until they're overflowing all over the stage, all over the two of them, swirling in a breeze that almost entirely covers that image of Satella—

It doesn't hide the sound of her sorrow, and it doesn't hide the sight of her shadow-encased hand.

And with the wave of her hand, Subaru's vision goes white.

"'Ay, Capt'n. Was wonderin' when ya were gonna return. I was startin' t' get a bit worri'd

'bout ya."

Gasping, Subaru whips to the side so fast that his head spins.

Instead of seeing Satella, he finds that sitting next to him is Garfiel, who impatiently clicks his fangs as he stares back at Subaru.

Oh. It's just Garfiel. Right. Just Garfiel. Nothing strange is happening.

None of this is real anyway. He can't wake up. He can't control anything else other than his actions.

No. At least he can control his own actions. The others—Emilia and Ram and this dream world Rem and Garfiel and—the others can't—

Subaru blinks. And then he blinks again, just to push away his confusion, and he gives a cautionary look around.

He and Garfiel are both sitting atop some stools at a bar, with a very much asleep Otto right next to Garfiel.

Otto is eerily still and quiet, face down on the table with his arms limply wrapped around his head. .

And yet, even as the din of other patrons fills the air, all the seats are filled with writhing masses of shadows instead of people.

She must be watching—Satella.

After she apparently altered his dreamscape, after he ran through Rem and Emilia and Rem, after hearing those voices at the beginning, when it was just him in this meadow where everything was fine and everything was perfect and—

How… how has this dreamscape changed, other than the shadows?

How much of this is real anymore?

The silence is broken by the impatient clicking and gnashing of Garfiel's teeth. He gives a loud, derisive snort. Otto doesn't stir. "Ya couldn't stop chit-chattin' when we met, but now yer 's quiet as a mouse?"

Nervously, Subaru chuckles, reaching for the back of his neck. "Oh. Ah… sorry, Garf. You know me, always getting distracted and all."

"Tsch. Ya n' yer Subaruisms," Garfiel scoffs. He's done this many times before—casual bickering, like he really is Subaru's little brother.

But now… now, there's that tiny bit of tension cutting into his voice, making it hoarse and shaky for a reason Subaru has no clue about.

"Y'know, Otto told me I might find ya 'ere," Garfiel rambles, his words slurring as he changes the subject, "Said he was worri'd 'bout ya, so I dragg'd his sorry merchant ass over 'ere—'course he'd fall asleep before all th' action happens. Everyone's always gone one way or 'nother when all th' shit's goin' down."

Otto still doesn't stir.

Subaru leans back. Maybe he should leave. Maybe he should—"What are you…."

…why would he leave? He needs to push through to the end, right?

"He ask'd me t' wake him up if ya ever came," Garfiel continues casually, "but I think this 's a heart-to-heart best had between us."

Noticing Subaru's discomfort, Garfiel makes a placating gesture in response. He rolls his eyes. "Stop lookin' at me like m' gonna bite yer head off, just wanna talk 's all."

"You could have just said that from the start," Subaru mutters, shivering. He rubs at his arms to make himself stop, but he just twitches violently in response.

He's so cold, like powdered snow's been dumped all over him. He doesn't like snow at all. It reminds him of teeth dragging across his skin.

Garfiel's eyes sharpen, but he shrugs at Subaru without a care in the world. "That would've taken the fun out 'f it," Garfiel says lightly.

The moment he finishes speaking, all the mirth drains from his face, flat yet tense and stiff and twitchy in every little muscle of his features—like it's been struck right through with lightning.

And then time stands still.

Subaru waits. And waits, and waits, with bated breath.

The atmosphere's broken with Garfiel clearing his throat, roughly, and awkwardly nodding towards the table. "Actually, are yer gonna drink that?"

Subaru blinks again. "Huh?" he mutters, gaping at Garfiel with a stupefied expression on his face.

A growl rips away from Garfiel's lips as he gestures to the bottle of golden liquid in front of Subaru—one that Subaru swears wasn't there a second ago.

A loose cork sits on top of the opening, and a part of Subaru wonders what would happen if he just popped off the cork and drowned himself in the entire drink.

Subaru shakes his head with a sharp inhale. No. Not anymore. Not anymore. His breaths come out in short gasps, but he covers it up with a shrug. As casually as he can manage, he rasps, "Oh, you know me, I'm not much of a drinker."

"Yer sure?" Something bitter, something sharp worms into Garfiel's tone, accusatory and dripping in resentment. It's—it's pointed, isn't it? Garfiel knows. It's all so obvious. "'S not alcohol. Look closer—coulda sworn ya took a real likin' to it."

Nervously, anxiously, Subaru looks down towards the bottle.

If he were to take a closer look… what would he even find?

His whole arm trembles as he reaches to pick it up. What the hell is he so afraid of? Why is it that something, something inside him screams that he should stop and forget about this—and that he would be happier if he did?

But all he needs to do is let himself sink into dreams again. It's so easy.

Lose himself again.

But. Well. Unfortunately, Natsuki Subaru has never been all that great at listening.

And so he curls his fingers around the bottle delicately, as if a single touch would make it shatter, and he sucks in a breath.

And then another.

Garfiel continues staring at Subaru, clenching and unclenching his hands like he's considering wrapping them around Subaru's throat.

"Don't ya dare take yer time, Capt'n," Garfiel snaps, his voice shaking with sheer frustration. But even behind that—there's a desperation to him there, like he's fighting back even as the words force themselves out—"Ain't ya gonna make a choice?"

"I… I am making a choice," Subaru grits out.

No, that's silly—to think that Garfiel would ever kill him. He never did it in the final timeline, and he never will now, right?

...the sight of Otto's body being severed mercilessly in half by claws, the trembling as Subaru staggered to his feet, begging, pleading, the blood spray spurting across his face and the bodies being sliced apart one after another—

What? Why did he think of that? Or… are those memories? His memories? Subaru is fine. Subaru is not fine. Subaru needs to get out of here, Subaru needs to save—

The glass itself is cool to the touch, and Subaru's fingers curl around it, nails digging into the surface.

It isn't anything out of the ordinary though! Not really. And yet, somehow, it still feels wrong and unnatural in his grip. He lifts it up slightly, just to get a better look at it, not to do anything else, and—

Quickly, he notices his own murky reflection in the glass. Garfiel and Otto are warped in the same frame of the glass bottle's curves and sides—the former twitching and grabbing at his own wrists desperately, and the latter still quiet and still, but—

Garfiel isn't speaking. That's odd. He's normally more talkative, right?

It's fine. In Subaru's reflection, exhaustion clings to his out of proportion features, enveloped in a blanket of wariness and weariness.

As twisted and distorted as it is, it's still him.

Those same sharp, mean eyes stare back at him, harsh and dark and judging. Accusatory, too, and yet it's the same eyes that were twisted with desperation and filled with tears the first time he drank this potion.

It's still you. Even after everything. He doesn't know how much of a good or bad thing that is.

But… this potion…

God. This is familiar, isn't it? How many times has it been now, staring into this very same bottle?

…Otto won't move. Why isn't Otto moving? Why is Garfiel staring at Subaru like this—like a cornered, rabid animal trying to restrain itself? Why isn't Subaru—

Sure, the whole potion situation started out of desperation. It started with countless sleepless nights flashing before him, filled past the brim with an all-consuming longing for rest while he just watched—exhausted and weary and wary and absolutely sick.

Subaru feels sick now, too.

Especially with his hands around that potion.

Suddenly, Garfiel deflates in his seat, collapsing inward with dark circles underneath his half-lidded, bloodshot eyes. "Where's yer answer, Capt'n," he says weakly. "Ya gonna drink tha' bottle, or what? Y've been spacin' out fer an awful long time, ya know. 'S felt like ferever."

Garfiel's eyes flash. They're bright, fever-bright, and dancing with something close to tears. He demands, "Ya don't happen t' be thinkin' 'bout somethin' important, are ya?"

Subaru feels really, really sick.

He sets the potion back down onto the table hastily, practically slamming it down into the wood.

The golden liquid sloshes inside the glass, almost inviting.

"No," Subaru says, swallowing. "No. It's… I just don't want to drink this."

Garfiel jerks back, almost recoiling, surprised? And then a wry, toothy grin suddenly peeks out from the corner of his lips. "Ah, oh well… yer loss. Supp'se yer wouldn't mind 'f I took the damn thing, then?" He blinks. His cheeks are faintly wet, but he just pauses, raising an eyebrow. "Or… would'ya even still give a shit if I just drank it?"

The potion is still on the table.

…drank it.

Flames curl under Subaru's skin, but his whole world feels like it's been submerged. Thoughts rush through his mind at blistering speeds, furious spirals chanting in his mind and going around and around in circles for eternity—it's so loud, roaring and crashing in his ears like a tsunami coming ashore until he can't even tell up from down.

The only thing he is certain of is that he can't let Garfiel take it.

Please, I can't, I need it. Please, please I can't stand to see anyone else getting hurt because of me. Please—I promise I won't—

"Don't." Of all the countless responses whirling inside, threatening to tear him apart, the only thing Subaru can manage to say is that.

It tumbles out as a weak whimper.

Garfiel tilts his head. His leery eyes never leave Subaru, even as he leans forward like he's going to snatch up the potion on the table at any moment. "What, Capt'n? Do ya not want me t' take it or drink it?"

Both. Neither. Subaru's heart flutters erratically in his chest.

He manages, "Just don't." Leave it alone.

"Why th' hell not, Capt'n?" Garfiel demands bitterly. "What, so ya can go back to yer happy little fantasy world an' keep runnin' an' givin' yer problems to th' rest of us?"

"I…" Subaru starts. I can't, he thinks, but he squeezes out the words—"I wasn't fond of this… this potion, Garfiel. I swear I wasn't."

Not entirely a lie. Not entirely the truth, either.

"What're ya talkin' 'bout?" Garfiel spits out, leaning back with his arms tightly crossed like he's trying to wrap himself in a straitjacket. His knuckles are white. He juts his chin towards the potion on the table. "Yer addicted to this, ain't ya?"

Subaru's eyes widen. "W-what? I'm not… I wasn't…"

Memories flash by—just a single tip of the bottle and everything would be okay, alright? First out of necessity, then out of habit, and then he couldn't stop himself anymore. One drop became two, two became a whole gulp, and then multiple, rushing down his throat.

And then it was the whole bottle.

Habit. Habit. Fuck. Wait until it escalates into something more than this, Subaru—you've always been the obsessive type, right?

He can't even say the words I wasn't addicted to this.

Subaru gulps. He starts again, "I-I'm not—I don't know what you're talking abou—"

Garfiel snaps to his feet and slams his fist on the countertop. "Stop fucking lyin' t' me."

The counter wails in protest as it splits in two, cracks rapidly spreading throughout as it fractures further and further, flinging shards of wood into the air.

The potion atop the table trembles, and then stills again.

Garfiel just continues staring at Subaru, forcibly shoving his fist back using his other hand. With his menacing shadow looming over Subaru, his eyes go vacant and hollow as if he's not completely there.

Otto still isn't moving or responding at all, even as Garfiel's claws drag across the wood like nails on chalkboard.

Otto… Otto is—

Neither Garfiel or Subaru move. Subaru just doesn't want to break this silence between them, Subaru just doesn't want to make things worse like he always does, Subaru—

His heart thuds wildly, thrashing inside his chest. It's so loud, loud, loud—every single beat screaming with the sound of a thousand gunshots. Blood rushes into his ears, and it's like an overinflated balloon just waiting to burst.

Breathe. Breathe.

Subaru exhales shakily.

Inhale, exhale, repeat. Inhale, exhale, repeat.

Air rushes down his throat...

And then Garfiel sits back down and slumps over, the vigor and passion draining from him like a puppet with its strings cut.

"C-Capt'n… I'm s'rry… th-this ain't right…" Garfiel trails off, mumbling words like he's addressing abyss—he doesn't look at Subaru. He's staring at the potion. "Sm'thing 'ere's been messin' with my mind… I-I can't even keep my own thoughts straight."

Garfiel's… Garfiel's never looked so distraught before—Subaru's almost never seen him be so very small and afraid like this.

Like the little kid he is.

And so Subaru's lips move to respond before he even realizes—with sweet reassurances, with anything, but Garfiel only gives him a sharp look.

Subaru falls silent.

"If I don't spit 's out right now—I dunno if I'll get another chance," Garfiel stammers. Finally, his eyes peel away from the potion, flickering right to Subaru. His pupils dilate—in fear, in horror, in—

"Capt'n—" Garfiel takes a shuddering breath, his nails screeching along the sides of the chair he's sitting in. Otto doesn't stir. "I feel so angry at ya, at ev'rything. 'S always there… d-diggin' right under my skin and some 'f it… some of it 's…"

A pause. Garfiel glances away, glances back at the potion and the shadows warping their surroundings and Otto—and then he glances to Subaru again, eyes filling with tears.

He clenches his jaw. He overcomes his hesitation and confesses, "Some 'f it—ain't mine, but a bit 'f it… 's tiny, sure, but 's mine even if I try t' keep runnin' away…"

Red flushes Garfiel's cheeks. He refuses to meet Subaru's eyes now, and so he looks down at the floor instead—ashamed and guilt ridden.

Garfiel starts: "Ev'r since I start'd havin' these dreams—"

He cuts himself off with a violent shake of his head. The potion on the table, near Garfiel, remains untouched and undamaged despite everything—not a single crack running through the glass surface.

"No…" Garfiel breathes, "Th' damn nightmares, that's what they are." He bites down on his lip with a single fang. "I-I've… I've been seein' things. Crazy, wild, batshit insane things tha' didn't happen—couldn't have happen'd. But I didn't get it… couldn' get a single lick of it at first… they're just dreams, right? So why're they so real, so strong? But what if they are… no matter how much 's seemed like a load o' bullshit?"

A dry, exhausted chuckle escapes from Garfiel's mouth, followed by an almost wry smile. Lips curl upwards, exposing his dagger-like teeth as he says, "Wouldn't that explain a lot about ya…?"

Subaru's vision blurs. The world's going dark—it's hard to fully make out Garfiel and Otto at this rate. "Garfiel… I… it's understandable to be angry or scared over this, o-or—"

"Look." Garfiel's chest heaves with every desperate breath. He reaches up to roughly wipe away the tears still welling in his eyes. "D-Don't give me any apol'gies or any bullshit, I don't care t' hear it, just—jus' tell me." His voice is so, so, small and timid. He's practically trembling like a leaf. His voice cracks as he whimpers—"Don'tcha h-hate me? Don'tcha hate us, after ev'rything we've done t' you? Ain't ya just lyin' 'bout caring for us just to stay alive? I-I wouldn't blame ya! I d-don' w-wanna hurt you again, I swear! B-but—"

Tears spill down Garfiel's cheeks. He rubs at them furiously, his crumpled face even redder with shame and embarrassment and regret. He cries out, "Are ya… really my Capt'n, or is that a lie too?!"

The potion glimmers at the corner of Subaru's eye.

Red runs down a bite mark on Otto's head, hidden underneath his tangled hair.

Subaru blinks, and then it's gone.

"Garfiel…" Subaru breathes. "I'm… I'm—"

And then his mouth snaps shut again.

Why is it so fucking hard to just say something, to do anything, to let Garfiel know that Subaru really does care about him?

The words squeeze out of Subaru's vocal chords—"I… I didn't—"

It's as if maggots are crawling inside of him, clogging his throat, stealing away his ability to speak and decaying his words as they gnaw out of his innards—uncomfortably melting and collapsing in on themselves.

His words are useless. His words aren't useless. He's useless, he isn't useless, he's—

Garfiel's eyes are fixated on Subaru, awaiting a response with such a pleading expression. This is the first time Subaru's seen him this crushed in this specific way.

It just feels like further condemnation.

It's just the weight of another person to disappoint.

He's—he's like a goddamn hero to Garfiel. And so of course he wants to shout I care, I really do until his lungs burn and his voice goes ragged.

But instead… all Subaru can do is stare at that fucking potion on the table like a deer caught in headlights.

"Please," Garfiel sobs. "Pl-please… I-I get it if ya hate me, but I… I'm st-still upset 'bout Liquid Memory, I still wanna know if—'f anything between us 's real. I wanna know if—"

Garfiel cuts himself off.

The tremors and cracks forcing their way into Garfiel's voice—god, it keeps reminding Subaru of how young Garfiel is. It keeps reminding Subaru how they're all so young.

Subaru's seventeen and Garfiel's fourteen and—they're all children and yet they've all had to go through so much.

Squeezing his eyes shut as if that could help him at all, Subaru rasps with his fists clenched and white: "I swear—I promise that it was real. That everything between us is real." Subaru inhales sharply. "I'm not going to stop caring about you, Garfiel."

Whatever Garfiel's expression is right now, Subaru can't stand to look, so he doesn't.

"Capt'n," comes Garfiel's voice, begging and pleading and broken. "I… I forgive ya. I just…" He chokes out another sob. "I'm s-sorry, Capt'n. F-For doubting ya, for killin' all those innocent fuckin' people, for—for hurting you so much. I h-hope that—"

And then he stops abruptly.

Of course… that's understandable, right? Garfiel is still upset; regardless, it still stings for him to go quiet like that.

And he… he gave an apology for all the things he did in timelines that no longer exist…?

Why? Why would Subaru ever deserve—

Ah.

Subaru doesn't have the heart to look. Subaru doesn't have the heart to open his mouth and spill it all—despite everything—he's afraid. Terrified, even.

Despite all the longing he's had for someone, anyone, to know what he's been through. He's just… he's never imagined things would turn out like this, like he would ever get the chance to—

No.

Dread creeps under his skin as he waits. The urge to just scratch, and scratch, and scratch until his arm is a bloody mess overwhelming, but—he can't take this anymore. He can't.

This is still a dream, isn't it?

He forces his eyes open to confront the guilt and the pity that's sure to meet him.

There's no one there.

The room is dark now.

Subaru stands up abruptly, nausea swelling up inside him. He sways on his feet, swallowing down bile.

The potion is still right there, on that countertop. Still staring at him as if nothing fucking happened, shimmering gold and topped off with a cork.

And in its glass, his own reflection still stares back at him too, pale and hollow-faced with blood pouring down his cheeks like tears, soaking into the white and black and yellow of his tracksuit.

Garfiel isn't in the reflection of the potion. Otto isn't either, but—

Otto was dead—has been dead this whole time. Subaru had been sitting with a fucking corpse this whole time and was none the wiser—no, hadn't wanted to realize. No wonder Otto didn't move, didn't react, didn't stir, no wonder Garfiel had to apparently drag Otto over here, no wonder there was a goddamn bite mark in Otto's head.

Red stands out against green clothing, but Subaru couldn't—wouldn't see it.

He didn't want to.

But Garfiel and Otto should still be here, even if they're not alive, twisting and writhing in the glass and the molten glow of the potion's contents. They should be. But he turns and—there's nothing—no one—sitting in the chairs beside him. There's just agonzied masses of shadows and sad, unrecognizable faces and whispers, whispers, the same as always, and he's all alone—

There's a writhing mess of bitter rage, and helplessness, and weird fucking apathy—pounding in his chest stabbing at his heart and—

He's sick and tired of coming face to face with this potion again.

He's sick and tired of having to fight all these horrible thoughts and memories stuffed into his head again. It's gone on for so long that he can't even fathom that it would ever even change.

He's so fucking tired of this.

But there's a weight wrapped around his wrist, soft and familiar singing of better times, and when he looks down, he sees a clean, yellow bandanna tied neatly into a small knot at his wrist.

That's when he remembers—Rem's pulse, weak around his fingers, and her own hands gently tying that bandanna around his twist, and her not breathing, not alive, not real, as she says—

Subaru stumbles back with a blood-curdling scream leaving his lips.

Calm down. Calm down, calm, calm, this is just a dream, this is still a dream, you can't let the dream make you forget, you can't forget what you have to do, you can't forget that now, everyone's going to know and they're not going to die for it, but you don't even know how to get out of this place.

What the hell does he even deserve, anyway? What does he even—

Don't forget Rem, either. You're the only one who knows her.

You're her hero. You're Garfiel's too, and—so many people love you, don't they?

Grasping his wrist close to his heaving chest, he cradles it as he leans against the bar table, spots bursting in front of his eyes.

Trembling, shaking, he turns back to the potion, and he thinks:

At the very least, you deserve way more than this fucked up dreamscape of yours, Natsuki Subaru.

His hand reaches out to the potion, ever so slightly hesitant, ever so slightly afraid, as his reflection mirrors back his expression—contorted into fear and rage and determination and so, so many emotions that he can't even name, flooding into him all at once.

His entire being is screaming no. It's screaming not to do this, it's screaming to just sink back into fantasy, screaming to ignore everything and anything that could hurt him, block it all away and crush his heart into bits, even his loved ones, and it's screaming to just—

Stand. Up. For them.

For you.

No—no, anything but all of this pain again. He can't take it anymore—he can't take all this suffering, he can't watch everyone around him suffer too, he can't just give up.

But almost everything in him keeps telling him to just take it—take the goddamn potion and feel it burn all the way down his throat again and just dream away the rest of his life. That's easy, isn't it? It's as easy as thinking that you're as disposable as a piece of garbage, it's as easy as throwing your life away and leaving everyone to mourn you.

No. That's not even easy either. None of this is easy. None of this has ever been easy.

He glances down at the yellow bandanna tied around his wrist.

This isn't easy either. It never is. But it'll get easier, won't it? He's lived all his life in a series of loops, but maybe, just maybe, he can end this one.

From zero… right?

The shadows curl in, closer, and ever so closer around him—an almost embrace. This time… it feels almost welcoming.

Subaru grabs the potion and throws it against the wall.

The glass shatters with a sickening crack, like the snap of a spine, shards raining down onto the ground like snowflakes. And from it, a pulsing whirlwind of colors erupts into a beautiful spectacle—gold and evergreen and amethyst and rose and scarlet.

It's a step in the right direction, after so many stumbles and blind, frenzied leaps into the abyss.

Isn't it?

But progress is as easily gained as lost, and the scars of the past are not so quick to fade.

Besides, did you really think it would be that easy?

The world wobbles before him as cracks weave up the walls, fracturing like glass, as it folds in upon itself and collapses.

It's left a gaping maw in its wake, swallowing Subaru, kicking and screaming, within it—a whole flood of liquid invading his lungs, a whole chorus of voices throbbing in his head in violent waves. He's burning up, he's melting, he's being consumed, he's like candle wax to the flame.

His whole existence is being torn out for the world to see, and at this rate, he'll be—

The chorus cries out.

I—I didn't mean to—I can't control th—

What's happening to us?

I'm sorry. We're—we're sorry.

Capt'n, why—w-why are we—

What's happening?! Why is this—

Subaru, hold on! We're—we're trying—

I'm so scared. We're all so scared.

Please, do something! Leave, run, get as far as you can from here, we're—we're so so so sorry!

Rem… Rem… that's… R-Rem?

This isn't your fau—

If we could have known sooner, if you were not constrained by—

Is this… what Liquid Memory does to you? Is this what—

W-we don't want to hurt you! We don't want to—

B-but—we cannot just sit here.

...what power do we have here? There's nothing.

But I… I refuse to lose anything—anyone—else.

It's the last thing he hears, right at this moment—right before the world goes dark.

---

They're in the middle of nowhere.

They're… they're...

Emilia stumbles forward, her silver hair swirling around her in a vacuum of nothing. It's pervasive, it's pulling at her wrists and ankles like a puppet on a string, it's—

Oh. She can... move again.

She hates being frozen in time. She hates being—

I-I'm trying to be someone that you'll love, Subaru! I'm trying to grow up.

No… no... that wasn't her, that was her, that could be her, that can't possibly be her.

"Subaru…" Emilia whispers to herself. Her hands clutch at the fabric in front of her heart in a painfully familiar gesture as she stammers, "We couldn't do anything, we couldn't control ourselves, all we could do was watch and try to break free, but we couldn't—"

Why bother speaking? Who is she even talking to? What's the point when she can't control what comes out of her mouth, when she can't control who she'll be? Always running, always shoving your problems onto everyone else but yourself.

No. You can't think about that now, not when Subaru is—

There's more important matters at hand.

Don't think that way.

Oh… she's gasping for breath—and so she forcibly composes herself. She scans her surroundings—there's only a dark abyss with an empty sky, brilliant amber shadowed in a blanket of nothingness.

It's all just nothing… right?

No—Otto and Beatrice are laying on the ground, eerily still, with their eyes closed.

Ram is sitting upright, staring right up and through Emilia with a hollow gaze. "Rem…" Ram rasps. Beside her, Garfiel's rubbing at his face as he slowly staggers to his feet. "I saw… Rem…"

Oh.

She doesn't remember—the memories all jumbled and tangled and lost, right through her head and spilling in between her fingers like melting ice, foggy and distant—what was it? What was happening to her, to Subaru, to Ram, Beatrice, Otto, Garfiel, everyone?

You can't think about that now.

Emilia's eyes shine with another painfully familiar feeling, a strange and uncontrollable betrayal tinged with grief, as she insists, speaking out into the void all around the five of them as if Subaru could still hear a single word she spoke—

"What did we all just experience, here in your dream?"

---

sorry for long wait :D the hiatus was actually totally because both of us authors sword fought each other to the death while school threw poison dart arrows at us! this fic is very hard and complicated and it is tricky to make sure all the nuances are captured u_u but it has resulted in a very fruitful result that we hope you've enjoyed :3

here's some quick AN bullet points:

- this fic is called hot potatoes is because the emilia camp is currently in a high stakes game of hot potatoes in which subaru's nightmares, memories, dream world shenanigans, etc are the hot potatoes :)

- gonna snitch on arowouctine by saying that they're responsible for all the body horror in this fic 3 their nightmarish description skills worthy of being in a victorian novel is too scary (and inspiring) 3 (pls read their stuff :D)

- there's still that promise to tura for a middle finger every AN, but this chapter is probably enough of a middle finger anyway ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

- Writing Garfiel is the embodiment of pain and we very much face desked the whole time trying to write him. (full offense to garfiel but this is why that dumbass middle schooler has next to no fic centered around him 3 said with love 3)

- We are sorry not sorry for the Beako and Otto nerf, you'll see them next chapter tho :)

- um um the kinda-sorta satella/subaru was purely on accident, oopsie daisies!

andddd thank you for reading of course :D see ya in th sorry for long wait :D the hiatus was actually totally because both of us authors sword fought each other to the death while school threw poison dart arrows at us! this fic is very hard and complicated and it is tricky to make sure all the nuances are captured u_u but it has resulted in a very fruitful result that we hope you've enjoyed :3PS.

Also quick question would you guys like to see our cut and changed content, honestly we have revised the fic so many times, and if so would we make it a separate fic or in authors notes? (And also possibly rambling about the nuances of this fic? :o)