M!A: What's haunting you is no longer a problem. It's not that you've moved on; it's just not there. You're the same you, but it's just gone. You remember your family, your loved ones, the things you love. You even remember your mistakes and why you're here in this situation but it's different. The weight is gone. Breathe a little easier. Smile. Lasts for a week, or until the mun says it's gone.
There’s a gentle ringing in his head, like a bell...
The slouch in his posture straightens out
There’s a gentle smile on his face.
But he knows there’s something wrong.
He pauses in his cooking for his family and he takes stock of his surroundings, the people in the room with him, the items, the situation. Saros, Whisper, Pacifica, Lucidia, Loki, Flare - his darling pup - and the rest of his Pokemon. Good, good, he remembers all of that. He’s in his house in his timeline that he made, with his family, making them food, enjoying their company, and he’s hanging out with them despite... what? Wait. Despite?
Saros is the first one, if only by seconds before Whisper, to realize something is off, and when they get him to turn towards them, they notice something wrong immediately. He’s standing straight up. He once told them that he slouches because of the weight of the expectation of the world upon his shoulders. Where has that weight gone? True or not, the weight. It’s gone. He’s standing at his full height, in his boots, and he looks so... happy. But it’s wrong.
“Hmm. Big brother? Y’alright?”
He looks around again, spatula in one hand for a moment before he sets it down.
He looks back down at the young star and smiles a little brighter.
“i’m... a little off. but i’m in a good mood.”
“a good mood? better than you were, five seconds ago?” Whisper speaks up.
Saros squints, but says nothing, yet.
“Oh yeah, something’s off.” Pacifica says, somewhat jokingly. She stands up though and walks up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, having to reach up a little more than she normally does to do so. “Well, whatever it is, you look good, smiling like this. A smile suits you, blomstbror.”
“thank you,” his head tilts as his smile softens with confusion, eyes sighting the worried, and one annoyed, looks of the others in the group. “but everybody else seems to disagree. is my smiling a bad thing?”
“Not bad,” Saros finally says, not looking away from their brother, who also doesn’t waver much or nearly as often as he normally does. “but it’s not you. You smile plenty whenever I see you normally. This, is not you.”
“can you explain? i certainly feel like me. just a little bit off mentally, but that’s nothing new.” Fleur chuckles, and the sound is warm, without that familiar grating quality to it that shows the hell his kindness has been through.
“... It’s hard to explain.” They look towards Whisper, and he’s just as shellshocked as they are. Back to Fleur. “I have to ask that when you’re done cooking, please take a walk. Clear your head before you come back home. We’ll be here. We just want you back.”
“But guys,” Pacifica’s tone becomes a bit desperate. “He’s happy! He’s smiling!”
“I haven’t seen him this happy around us in ages. Can’t we enjoy what we have while we have it, Saros? Can’t we see him be a little enthusiastic, Far? And Mom, you can talk to him without the scowl! He’s actually in a great mood and he’s not weighed down!”
“Sis. He’s under a spell.”
“Please,” frustration takes her tone. “Let him have this. Let him enjoy this. Doesn’t he deserve it after all the hell he’s been through? Almost dying, losing everything, losing us for a long time, he deserves a moment like this, spell or not, to relax and have fun and smile without worry.”
“It’s not REAL.” Saros all but snaps back, like the crack of a whip. “He wouldn’t want this, and neither do we. He’s perfectly capable of being happy on his own, and this is just m...” They think for a moment before they shake their head. “This is just ruining his ability to believe he’s capable of being happy on his own. Which he is.”
“but i am happy?” Something feels off about this.
“You can be. But not like this.” Saros says again.
Pacifica deflates somewhat. “But he deserves a moment to breathe.”
Nothing is said this time, and Pacifica finally lets her anger get the best of her and storms out of the kitchen, leaving a confused Monstrosity and a silent family in her wake. Fleur watches her storm upstairs and into her room, only to then look around the room with a bit of a confused look. His eyes land on the god in the room, and worry takes his expression.
“that’s what’s off, isn’t it?” There’s that ringing again, but it’s stunted, staggered, swaying in a way he can’t explain any other way than ‘breaking’. “this happiness. it’s not right is it?”
“no.” Whisper says solemnly. “it’s not you.”
He pauses for a time, taking stock of the rest of the situation once more. After a short time, he finds his smile returning.
And here’s the thing. When he smiles, it’s so gentle, so soft, so kind. His touches are fleeting and careful, the rustling of a young one’s hair like the breeze, ethereal. He stands taller. He’s got a bit of a pep to his step. The pain in him is gone. The agony, the anger, the hatred, and vengeance, the justice. It’s all gone, replaced with something saccharine. He’s so sweet and so kind and so honest and so much better than he was before and it’s so different, but that’s the thing. Different. Wrong.
No matter who he speaks to, they all have the same consensus if they know him deeper than the average speaker. It’s not you, this isn’t you, you’re not happy, this is wrong. And he believes it. And he smiles at it.
It’s less than a day, less than half a day, but he steps away from it all in a timeline where very few know how to find him or follow his footsteps, and he reaches out with one hand. Claws find resistance as he drags them upwards, the tangled knot of falsities and sugar coated lies resisting with all its might against it. What pretty magic. What pretty, and pretty sweet Intent.
His fingers curl delicately around it, and he takes out a small pair of clock hands from a pocket dimension. He uses the hour hand to steady the tangled mess in the air, and then uses the minute hand to carefully find the one string that leads back to where this intended to begin and finds the moment where the thread was made too chaotic to function the way it was supposed to. He smiles softer, pausing as he repositions the minute hand, pulling a nearly invisible thread through a hole at the end of it.
“... reality can’t be worse than this.”
And he pulls the minute hand through the break.
In an instant, the tangled knot fixes itself and the hour hand and minute hand clatter to the stone ground. The slouch in his posture returns, the shuddering of a sigh taking the soft smile along with it. A single tear drops off of his chin and he wipes away what’s left of the remains on his face. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head.
“reality is not worse than that.”
And then he picks up the two clock hands, pocketing them again before leaving.
