461/Thriving, Surviving, Struggling, In Crisis

Thriving, Surviving, Struggling, In Crisis
Date of Scene:	19 September 2023
Location:	Dorms
Synopsis:	Mental health crisis. Jadeite is helped by Mamoru in whichever ways Mamoru's able.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Jadeite

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Let me take care of you.

On the cliff, there were taiyaki and coffee from Kyouka; Jadeite spoke and laughed and the laugh was nothing healthy, was nothing sane, and Mamoru held him and gave him anko-filled fish-looking pastry, and listened and was present and warm and strong.

Once Jadeite-- Jason? falls asleep against him, Hematite carefully picks him up; he'll come back for the taiyaki and coffee later and hope that ants didn't get them. Pyrite did well but is able to take care of herself right now; he'll check on her later. Jadeite, though...

He hasn't been taking care of himself for the gods know how long.

He teleports them to where he knows Jason's room is and it's dark, and something's immediately crunching underfoot. It smells of sickness and decay and the bad kind of darkness in there, and it has Hematite holding Jadeite closer.

Koji isn't back yet, or shouldn't be, and Hematite teleports them again, this time to his own room. Jadeite gets placed gently on Mamoru's bed, and Mamoru's face is screwed up, close to crying now that Jason can't see him-- but he doesn't have time for that right now. Boots get taken off first, then belt, carefully; Mamoru gets a paper towel and puts some filtered water on it and cleans off Jason's face.

He brushes Jason's hair back from his face and says quietly, "If you're awake, I need to tell you, I'll be right back. You're in my room, you're safe."

Jadeite has posed:
    Jason is not awake. But he becomes half-lucid at the sound of Mamoru's voice. It's comforting but also draws his attention. Like a moth to a flame. "Okay, be careful..." he mumbles, his words thick with sleep. Yes, it's probably best he wake up here for now. His dorm room is... Bad.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru drops his henshin to put the back of his hand against Jadeite's forehead just to check his temperature, and it's such deep affection in his touch that it might even come through the horrible haze of dark energy clouding his empathy.

It may be difficult, but it's a relief: he feels like taking care of people, protecting people, is what he's for, and if he can't take care of his own, it's like he told Jason: why is he even here? But he can help, this time, at least partway.

He takes a step away, then, and crouches to rummage in his and Koji's emergency medical stuff to take some things out. A few pair of protective plastic gloves, a dose of an NSAID in a little packet, an anti-emetic just in case it's been that long since Jason's eaten-- things like that. He puts most of them on the nightstand with a bottle of water and puts his little trash bin next to the bed in easy reach, also just in case.

A few minutes later, after carefully changing Jason into his own pajamas, he scribbles out a note to Jason saying around what time he'll be back, then slips out the door with a flashlight.

As soon as he's out he texts Kazuo. He needs things he can't explain, and asks Kazuo to get them, and to text him when he's heading to the dorm with them -- Mamoru will pay him back. Sports drinks and meal replacement drinks and an array of vitamins and a pharmacy week-long daily pillbox, and garbage bags and more plastic gloves. He texts an apology.

He pockets his phone and goes to assess the damage.

He adds 'disposable surgical masks' to the requests for poor Kazuo.

He walks, because he needs to be Mamoru instead of Hematite on the way to Jason's room, even if he's going to have to henshin to teleport past the door, and when he gets there he leans his head against the door for just a moment. He has a feeling he's going to need to make a youma to help him at some point.

And then -- finally -- making sure no one is looking -- he re-henshins and teleports back into the room with gloves and phone flashlight on, finds the lightswitch, and tries it. When the light goes on he's half relieved he doesn't also have to ask Kazuo for lightbulbs, and the rest of him aches for his friend and tries hard not to feel guilty he didn't notice. Jadeite hides things well. Jadeite the illusionist. Jadeite the liar. He loves him so, and he can do this for him.

Full garbage bags first. Those, Hematite can at least teleport away into random dumpsters he's seen around, and some in the school's-- and when he's done with those, he goes back to check on Jason and text Kazuo that he's back.

Jadeite has posed:
    Jason is sleeping soundly. More or less soundly, anyway. He actually has food in his stomach, his face has been cleaned of the red bean paste that made him look like he'd just had his mouth in somebody's jugular, and while he's still very, very pale, with the skin around his eyes so dark it looks like greasepaint, he is going to be okay.

    Just imagine if he had tried to do something drastic in this condition, like fight Sailor Moon, or hold a school hostage for the Silver Crystal. He would have become even more erratic, unpredictable, and been on a razor's edge between function and failure.

    But not now. Now, he's just sleeping.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru sits at the desk chair and just watches Jason breathing, sleeping, for a little while -- until he gets a text back from Kazuo, and heads to the door and slips out to meet him.

When he comes back in, Kazuo is gone, and Mamoru carries in the supplies he asked for, and some that he didn't -- higher quality filtering masks, hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies.

He doesn't ask Kazuo for help cleaning Jason's dorm: while he knows Kazuo wouldn't mind, and he thinks Jason might not mind if they were all themselves and all knew each other on the level they ought to, as things actually are it would be a step too far. It would break a trust.

So he sets things out in easy reach again, all the just in cases, and he tucks Jason in, and he henshins and puts on the protective gear and brings the cleaning supplies.

Laundry. More trash, some garbage. More laundry, linens and blanket. He stays in henshin and pulls his hair back, he shoves his cape into whatever magical space it is that his glasses go, and he patiently and methodically goes through the room. Dark energy broom and dark energy rake, honestly; bags for garbage and bags for recycles. Laundry again. Cleaning supplies, finally, in the wee small hours of the dawn.

Once he's got the place down to somewhat cluttered but clean and partway organized, with the window open a crack and small fan operating in it to circulate fresh outdoor air, Mamoru makes the bed and takes out the trash one more time.

Then he schleps back to his and Koji's room, and Jason will eventually wake up with Mamoru asleep behind him, over the covers, one arm loosely draped over Jason's midsection.

Jadeite has posed:
    Consciousness comes slowly. Jason is in no hurry to wake, so the progress up the Stairs of Sleep from Unknown Kadath or wherever he has been kicking around while his body and mind repaired themselves. However, waking is inevitable. He is still flush with Dark Energy, and so repairs are made quickly. As measured breaths lose their rhythm, and green eyes open groggily and unhappily, the angelic appearance that Jason has in his sleep, a cherubic appearance with his blonde hair and sharp European features, melts into the look of a patient waking up in a hospital after a terrible accident.

    Confused and disoriented, and still very tired, but the sedation is wearing off so despite the desire to go back to sleep it is not possible. So he takes stock of himself as he lies there, the warmth of a body behind him gradually entering his awareness, along with the arm slung over him. What was he doing last? Where is he? How did he get here? Whose arm is this?

    He doesn't feel any sense of alarm or urgency. He feels this is right. He is where he should be. Maybe not here, specifically, but with a particular person, rather than orbiting opposite. His clothes are different. That is what finally makes him start willingly pushing aside the sleep fog. He is quite certain he was wearing his uniform when he was last awake... Or was it a business suit? Either way, he was on-duty, and with his Prince, and... And then what?

    It was the night of the ball, when Endymion in disguise, wearing a mask and a mantle of Disguise Magic, and the Moon Princess, ephemereal and light, and utterly entranced, were dancing. The war with Beryl and her loyalists would be long and vicious, from how things were going. The Prince and his Lunar Love would scarce be able to see each other from now on. A young love like that would need this night together, to keep their bond strong in the dark days to come.

    Jadeite was supposed to be standing guard, along with the other Guardians, but there was a girl from Mars, in her Senshi attire, who was supposed to be looking after her own charge, and... Jadeite and Sailor Mars wound up... Not staying at their posts, so to speak.

    But that mental image of Endymion and Serenity dancing in the Earth's light, with the crowd looking on, wondering who this young man was... That would stay with him. That promise that there was still a future, and that the future might be what brought the Earth up into the Silver Millennium properly... That was a hope worth sacrificing for.

    Then he is standing in the Lunar Palace again, and everything is tinted red, and there are screams outside, and he is ramming a blade through Sailor Mars' heart, and she is looking up at him, in pain, in fear, in confusion, as she coughs up a gout of blood like an accusation, and suddenly Jason is very awake and sitting up in bed, a cold sweat on his pale features, his eyes darting around the room, one hand gripping tightly onto the edge of the bed, the other onto the forearm of Mamoru.

    Ah. There he is. He's back to living this waking nightmare. And already, the gossamer threads of the dream are slipping from his grasp.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And Mamoru-- whose sleep was largely dreamless, as it's frequently been ever since the dark energy first clouded his perceptions-- startles awake all of a sudden, the weight on the bed and the mood both shifting, and his forearm suddenly in Jadeite's iron grip. He transforms almost reflexively, suddenly all cape and gloves and boots in bed, and yelps "Wha--?? What??" as he sits up and almost hits his head against Jadeite's.

When nothing turns out to actually be attacking, Mamoru falls back onto the bed and complains, "It's too early for this." He sounds so goddamn much, in that moment, like Jadeite's Prince when being rousted out of bed by Kunzite for training that it might prolong some of the feeling of the first part-- just for a moment--

Mamoru takes a breath as he drops his henshin, as he's no longer Hematite, just a high school boy still wearing the clothes he was in yesterday, messy bedhead and tired face. "Nightmares?" he asks, half muffled from his hand dragging down his face. Not the arm Jadeite's gripping, just the other one; he sounds sympathetic. Of course he does. But it's him, he actually means it.

Jadeite has posed:
    He's Jason right now. Not Jadeite. But for a moment, his guise flickers between the two. Then he lets go of Mamoru's arm, which he had grabbed both as protection and in order to protect, and just sits with his legs over the edge of the bed, hunched over, head hanging, like it has been for so long that he could just sit like that for hours each night until it was time to get up. But he feels a bit better than that now. Just a bit. Even so, his answer to the question posed is dark.

    'Nightmares?'

    "Always." he says simply, as he looks across the room to the other bed, wondering if he should be expecting company.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Well help me get out of this mess and I can probably do a lot to fix that," comes Mamoru's voice again, muzzy but in the process of waking up properly. He sits himself up and shimmies across the bed so he can sit next to Jason and fling an arm around his shoulders, casually tactile, casually disregarding normal boundaries as he does.

He doesn't just do that. He unapologetically leans his head on Jason's shoulder, too, even if that part's just for a moment, and is probably somewhat ticklish because of bedhead. "Don't be mad," he says, which ALWAYS MEANS there's gonna be something that will probably annoy Jason. He follows it up with, "I kind of cleaned your room. Mostly. I had a lot of nervous energy to get rid of and I wanted to help. But don't worry!! I didn't throw out anything that looked like it could potentially be stuff instead of junk, but if you were collecting recycleable bottles to get the deposits, sorry they're gone."

He doesn't seem worried that someone might walk in at any moment, at least.

Jadeite has posed:
    Jason doesn't resist, push away, or otherwise reject the presence and contact. He just listens to whatever it is that's supposed to make him mad. "I don't have the energy to be angry. And it was a health hazard as it was. Thank you." If he had the energy, there would be a convoluted process of assigning blame because Mamoru saw how awful his room was and thus became aware of just how unwell and incapable Jason was, and the anger towards Mamoru for becoming aware of what he was hiding would just be projection because he is actually mad at himself for being such a screw-up in the first place (consummate Jadeite right there), but right now he seems... Fine. It's all fine.

    "Please tell me you don't have sets of pajamas ready for each of us in the event we have a break-down and need our rooms cleaned and a nap." he says blandly. He isn't sure what it would say about Mamoru, and he definitely doesn't know what it would say about the rest of them that such a scenario was anticipated, but he hopes it's not the reality of the situation either way. Some things are so specific that planning for them is more cause for concern than not being prepared for them.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I don't have sets of pajamas ready for each of you in the event you have a breakdown and need your rooms cleaned and a nap," Mamoru says dutifully, and then grins, but the grin softens and then falls away. "Don't worry. It's my pajamas. I needed to throw your clothes in the laundry. They're folded up over there," he gestures with his free hand. A beat. "I don't know if you're hungry or not, but you should have an actual meal now that your stomach's not about to consume itself."

He's not removing himself -- or his warmth and contact -- from Jason yet, but there's no pressure to it. Jason can shrug him off or just stand up at any time. "Do you want me to get us breakfast first and then talk about stuff a little bit, or talk about stuff and then go get breakfast? Koji -- my roommate -- isnt coming back until later today."

Jadeite has posed:
    Jason thinks it over. "Food, then talk. I've been trying to do everything on no food for too long. I need something in me to think clearly." He tilts his head as he leans to semi-bump Mamoru affectionately. "If your majesty pleases." he says teasingly. Coincidental choice of words, or lingering dreams/memories, you decide. "Sorry." he adds on after a few seconds. "I appreciate that you worry, but you shouldn't have to."

    His clothes are very low on his priority list right now. Also, despite saying food first, here he is, talking. Maybe talking should come first so breakfast can be enjoyed properly.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Shit happens," says Mamoru frankly, "and then people who love you worry. It's just the way it works, no reason to apologise." He squeezes Jason's shoulders, then finally does let go so he can schlep to his feet. Once there, he sways slightly, taking hold of the desk chair to steady himself with a laugh. "Headrush."

Secret mission: talk while getting ready to go get food, then go get food, then talk while fooding, then talk after food. Mamoru is crafty, coincidental highnessness or not. "Anyway, no reason to apologize, but what's going on? Besides the nightmares and the actual legitimate demon making a hideous mess of your free will and prospects of friendship with normal people? I'm working on that one, but if there's anything else you're stressing over, now's probably a good time--" he finds a uniform shirt that's not too wrinkled and pulls it on over his undershirt, then starts buttoning it "--to start figuring it out. And I want to help with that, too."