Chapter Text
If the picture is shaky, scattered while bouncing and doesn't make sense.
If the facial features are blurred and their eyes have glimps of sicken yellow.
It must be because Leo is not having a good day.
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(Fixation amnesia is the loss of the ability to remember events.)
"Oh, I think I'll take that pizza with the glowing... WORMS? Why does that even exist?", utters a soft, beloved female voice. You rely on that voice. Why?
(The resulting disorders are:
1. Anterograde amnesia for a period since the fixation amnesia.)
"You're hilarious. Sigh. I can't believe you still haven't tried any of the magical pizza. It's horrible, of course, but it's unimaginably inconsiderate of you," a monotone voice in which, you're sure, you could once read emotion and be proud of it. You know you could come to it and tell it everything in the world. You hold out for that voice. Why?
(Additionally, retrograde amnesia may be present, capturing some period of time before the onset of the illness.)
"You guys still haven't decided on an order? So, are we going to sit here for another two hours 'cause don't want to explain to the Pops why we're so late," deep, soothing, worried voice. You adore spending time with it and feel like it's the one who cared about you the most. You feel respect and guilt when you hear that voice. Why?
(2. Amniotic disorientation in time and surroundings due to inability to remember location, current date, etc.)
"Pizza with magical worms but not regular rats. Why can I eat worms but not rats? Worms are alive too, right? Well, were alive," a young, not-yet-fully-remembered voice in your head. You love to show it new things. You feel kinship and sadness and death when you hear that voice. Why?
(3. Pseudo reminiscences and confabulations - filling memory gaps with false memories.)
"How many times have I told you not to talk about eating rats? We have plenty of FOOD and if you don't eat enough FOOD, I'll make Orange make you more FOOD! My future son shouldn't be so skinny and narrow-minded!", a loud, confident voice. You love playing chess with it and you know it's soft inside. You respect that voice. Why?
[ (Escapism is the human tendency to escape from real life with its problems and complexities into a safe fantasy world.
Why wasn't it safe then?) ]
"Hey, Ḽ̴̯̩͍̔́e̴͇̣̜̋̐̊̔̅ǒ̷̼̗̜̳̦͙̦̯͙̦! Have you chosen anything yet? I think a Hawaiian pizza without chicken or ham would be fine! By the way! Remember when you asked me to show you those sketches I did yesterday? Ḽ̴̯̩͍̔́e̴͇̣̜̋̐̊̔̅ǒ̷̼̗̜̳̦͙̦̯͙̦? Can you even hear me?", cheerful, upbeat voice, you can feel the care and desire to color the world in it. You really want to see the voice's sketches, you promised, you don't remember. Why?
(You need to twitch, you don't like that definition, it's less scientific and medically validated and relates more to human psychology. You're not a specialist in that. Someone else in your family is an expert in this field. You gather your thoughts and try to grab another word from the shards of your memories and recall its meaning).
"Ḽ̴̯̩͍̔́e̴͇̣̜̋̐̊̔̅ǒ̷̼̗̜̳̦͙̦̯͙̦, are you okay?", why can't you hear it? It's worried. You need to calm it down.
[ (Derealization, aka allopsychic depersonalization, is a perceptual disorder in which the surrounding world is perceived as unreal or distant, stripped of its colors, and in which memory impairment can occur.) ]
"Guys, there's something wrong with Ḽ̴̯̩͍̔́e̴͇̣̜̋̐̊̔̅o.", soothe, comfort, cheer up, make it better. You can, you can, you can, you can, just move.
[ (It's even worse this way. You need to get your act together and remember another medical-themed definition.
Why is there only one piece of garbage in your head?
Why did you call it garbage, it's not garbage, that's what (Mikey) said, meaning it's not garbage.
What is even going on. ) ]
"Ḽ̴̯̩͍̔́e̶o̶, are you okay buddy?", another concerned voice. You don't like the sound of it, it makes you feel guilty.
[ (Again. Why was it so bright in here? Why were the shadows so dark, there, behind Mikey's back? Why was Mikey here, in his room.
Wait, you're not in your room.) ]
"He's abstracting again, damn it. I don't want to put him back together again in pieces. f*ck, whose idea was it to take so long to pick out a pizza?!"
[(Why are you so tired? Why is Mikey's face so worried and why can't you see your own face. What's your name?)]
"L̶e̶o̶, please, buddy. You're okay, you're with us, here, safe," he touches your thigh, but you don't feel it.
[(Why can't you feel it? What's wrong, what's wrong with your leg? Why don't you have a leg? Why do you see their eyes, but you don't see your family's eyes?)]
"It f*cking happens all the time. L̶eo! If you don't get out of this state, I promise I'll burn your entire collection of Jupiter Jim comics from the third relaunch, especially the extra editions!", he stands up from the table, rests one of his hands on the table, and points his index finger at you with his other hand. You don't see it, but you know that's what happened.
[The creature used to have yellow eyes. They are no longer there because you made it blind. They are somewhere in your hip bag, you remember that. But you don't remember why your eyes are yellow and why your eyes aren't in that bag.]
"Donnie!" he gets up from the table too, his gaze heavy and warning. You don't like that look.
[It's sharp, sizzling, hot and angry.]
"Boys!", the third person stands up from the table. If everyone stands up, the table will fall. Why should it fall? You don't know. You're not sure. You don't remember why the table should fall. I think the table's fallen before. And something broke. Could something have broken? Only something glass.
[Your mystics were able to turn the black dust under your feet into glass. It was pure. So pure and right that you laughed, laughed loudly and hysterically until tears flowed from your eyes from (hope)lessness. ]
"WHAT?! I'm just trying to get him out of this state! We can't touch him, so what do you think I should do, dear brother?", he is annoyed, frustrated. There is hopelessness and irritation in his voice. You know how to calm him down, you knew how to calm him down. You feel like you could get up and comfort him too, but you can't get up because your whole body hurts.
[It ate, devoured, mottled your leg so that there was nothing left for you to do.
It turned your insides into unimaginable nothingness, there was nothing left for you to do.
It colored your body into scars and one solid mass of pain, there was nothing left for you to do.
It tried to do the same to your home and family, there was nothing you could do.
You could just stare into the black suffocating darkness, there was nothing left to do.
You miss them so much. You love their voices so much. You can't remember their faces (even now when they're sitting next to you).
You're so sorry.
Why? Why are you sorry, Leo? ]
"Donnie, I swear I--"
"Are you ready to order? "
You inhale sharply, loudly. You blink, your eyes dry and ready to about to start spewing out a torrent of tear fluid. Your chin, teeth, and jaw ache from how long you've been staring at the same spot with your hands under your head.
[You were looking far far away. There were no other stars in the sky. Just a white dwarf. You named it Ryan. It was supposed to be funny. But.
You didn't like the fact that you didn't see the familiar constellations in the sky like you did back home. You didn't see the rocks beneath the ground that tried to remind you of the stars on the surface that sparkled and shimmered, mesmerizing to look at. Here and now you could only see the wreckage of one solid thread of nothingness.]
"Guys, what are we doing here?", you swallow, your throat hurting and voice hoarse and quiet. Apparently, all the comedy going on before your words has turned into one big circus of a cabaret, since all eyes are now on you. "Why is everyone looking at me like I robbed a bank and forgot to tell you we're millionaires now?"
[Why is it looking at you? Don't look. It stopped looking as soon as it lost its eyes. Now you are the only one looking in them because they belong to you.]
"Uh, yeah, uh, hello, we're ready to order! Donnie, talk!", April, with all her usual enthusiasm and desire to pretend that everything is fine and they weren't fighting all over their 'gone somewhere in the abyss of space' brother, shoves the turtle in purple in the side. Donnie gives an exaggerated shriek, but immediately turns his attention and negativity back to the waiter.
[You're laughing, you're laughing, you're laughing, you're laughing, you're laughing, you're laughing, you're laughing, why aren't you laughing?]
You raise up on your elbows, trying to stretch your shoulders. You don't need to go off into prostration one more time and look like an idiot to one more person in this establishment. You've already made yourself and your family look like a bunch of idiots. People seem to be staring at you. Stop staring, please.
[...]
Wait, what kind of place? Order? Waiter? Restaurant? Ah, 'Run of the Mill'.
"I'd like one pizza WITHOUT EVERYTHING literally just dough, cheese, tomato sauce. Bake at a temperature of-", Donnie stops, feeling all eyes not directed at you, but already on him, in an attempt to stop his endless mumbling. He stoops and continues, "French fries, quiche and..."
f*ck, when did they even get here? Why doesn't this make sense? Well, they were in the Lair - you watched Mikey doodle in his sketchbook and telling... Something. CJ was sitting next to you in the chair, his head on your shoulder, and he was peacefully watching everything going on around him. He was quiet, nostalgic. He asked Donnie, they picked up on it and started chatting. And you loved the light from the lamps in the living room. It was warm, soft, the shadows were nice and not scary.
Here everything was harsh. The light was neutral, it was everywhere, and at the same time, where it didn't hit surroundings, it made the shadows toothy, precipitous, ready to pull you in.
[Everything was cold, and the only light that reached you was from the star. A white dwarf. You liked stars, but here there was only a white dwarf that colored everything gray and black. And it wasn't warm or hot like stars should be, especially dying stars. Everything was cold, cold, cold and you laughed and cried and smiled until the warm light took you away.]
You thought this was what death looked like, but it was your brother.
"Leo, are you okay? , Mikey seemed determined to be your savior for the rest of your life. While the rest of the crew was ordering, he decided to sit closer to you, leaning his shoulder against you. One of his palms covers yours. You can feel the tremor of his hands, oh, one of those days? It brings you back, back to the present.
(... You're not there anymore, it's all right. They saved you, do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember? Do you remember? Please remember. It's very important.)
"Sorry bro, I was staring at the wall a little bit, back and forth, it's fine, really," you smile, squinting your eyes a little, looking at Mikey. He knows the smile is fake, he knows you feel bad. They all feel bad. They're all hurting. You all will talk about it when you come to the Lair. You love them and they love you. "Especially next to a tough big guy like you, any monsters and shadows will retreat. "
You wrap your arm around Mikey and feel the warmth emanating from his Ninpo. He smiles, a little sad but understanding. And you close your eyes and sink into circles and dots and swirls of something bright, ringing, native and safe. You could describe it endlessly. Because that's what allows you to live and move on. They all let you live and move on.
[...
...
...
...
...
It was hot, but not scalding. Bright but not blinding. Exciting, but not disturbing. That's how you'd really want to die.]
"So you want to see what I drew yesterday after all?", Mikey chuckles, realizing you hadn't heard his question before. But you stare at him for a second, rounding your eyes, followed by a nod. It's only after a moment that you realize the meaning of his words.
(... You never wanted to die. Do you remember?)
"Wait, yesterday's drawings? You don't want to show what you drew today? And you also say I have bad self-esteem, huh," you snicker, teasingly, but Mikey's hand on yours shudders even more than it did before. Oh, that's right, bad hands, shaking hands. No drawing today. f*ck. He's f*cked up. f*ck. f*ck. f*ck. f*ck.
[You choke when...]
"Leo, Mikey, order up! It's two hours till closing time, I don't want to eat in a hurry or takeaway! Because I'm already set up to eat here! ", Donnie calls out to them and you can see glimps of his frown. He doesn't like picking up food from the place. Only delivery or eating food at the venue itself. Right. What's takeout?
"I'll have the one with gorgonzola, honey, and pine nuts! And a peach co*ke with no sugar, thank you, please! Lee?", you sigh, knowing the subject of your memory will come up again. You take the pills, you sleep eight hours, well, try to sleep, visit (?) that woman who makes you think more than you're used to and. And. And. And. And. And.
Come again.
(...
The brain is the substance that fills the skull and the canal of the spine. The central section of the nervous system of man and animals. The human thinking organ that is so unbearably dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Animals on the other hand have no thinking, you're not an animal and you're not a human, you're not Yokai, you, what are you?
...
Order a pizza. You forgot to order pizza? That's right. The waiter asked what you ordered. )
"Uh, yeah, Hawaiian pizza, the one with the- pineapple? Yeah, oh, and no meat, no ham? Or is it chicken?", you snicker as you look at the menu. Your dyslexia neighboring your head injury doesn't seem to be helping. However, you've done remarkably well. You nailed it, man, one hundred percent.
But apparently that's not the case when you look up and are confronted with a perplexed look (/) from the feline Yokai, who shifts her gaze (?) to your family. Have you been silent for too long? Or did you say the name of the order in your head?
Not a minute passes before the cat's eyes close, she frowns her eyebrows probably, sighs heavily and says loudly, "Usagi, switch me, I need to smoke, I can't take this anymore," she turns on her heels and walks towards another Yokai nearby, who was in the meantime laying out a menu on a vacant table, "Here you go, their order, they're weird. f*cking weird. I'll never again accept a one-time part-time job here to fill in for someone who's suddenly sick. I quit."
The cat didn't even seem to be bothered by the fact that she was standing five meters away from their table and they could hear her comments perfectly well.
"You don't even work here full time, how can you quit!?", the guy's siluette looks more tired than annoyed.
[ (Why their faces have no features at all?) ]
"Yeah, yeah, bye bye, I'm not coming back," Cat states peremptorily, takes off her red apron and waves goodbye, pulling out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. She disappears behind the kitchen doors.
Whoa, what a drama. You and your family love drama.
"What do you mean you are not going to- Okay, fine, well, hello again... I think I'm your new waiter. Did you order everything? Or do I need to add something to the list? ", the yokai rabbit approaches your table, tries to straighten up and is defeated. Colours on his face express discomfort. It looks like his back is hurting. Also, his calm tone means no drama for you and your family to see.
No drama. Well, another day without fun.
(When was the last time you laughed? Do you remember? You think it was yesterday. What was yesterday? Mikey was drawing yesterday, not tonight, right, that's your mistake. Your brain hurts. Why does it hurt? You hit your head a lot.)
"No, I think we're done um...Usagi? Yes? Please forgive us for pissing off our last waiter," Mikey chuckles and slouches down, squinting at you.
(A concussion is a relatively mild and reversible disruption of brain function without organic damage. It's a condition that results from a brain injury: a severe blow, a contusion, or--)
"It's all right. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I'm sorry for my colleague's behavior. Chizu can be very testy sometimes, you know," Usagi, the yokai-waiter-guy, grins with the left corner of his lips just barely. And you stare and can't look away because his siluette is white and there is glimmering red dust on his face.
[ ( You haven't seen red in a white dwarf ] )
"Is everything alright? ", Usagi notices the fact that you're staring and you blink dumbly. Its image jiggles in your eyes and for some reason it looks like a pulsar. It's glowing and it doesn't help you that there's a lamp shining above his head, framing his skull, fur, and ears. Wow, his ears are cool. Wow, is his fur soft? Wait.
"Yeah, um, excuse him, he sometimes... 'gets 'stuck' on things. ",
"Yeah, because he's got no more than two brain cells in his head or because he has amnesia. Or all of the above. We'll never know...", Donnie interjects into the conversation.
"Hey...Usagi, right? Do you like stars? ", you smile a stupidly toothy happy smile. You know you look stupid, creepy, most likely, but you can't help that now people are making associations in your brain. And that you can't keep quiet about it.
Oh, today really isn't your best day.
( [... Sometimes you were actually glad, even grateful, that out there, far far away, where you would never go back, you had at least one star. Not just a pile of metal, earth, and dust that made you feel lonely. At least the star was beautiful. You like beautiful things. You love beautiful things. But beautiful things are far away, which means they are impossible or hard to get. But that's not a bad thing. Really not a bad thing. You can live with it. Observation is also a kind of blessing.
...
...
Sometimes the ugly things are far away too, but you don't want them to be in reach] )
"Oh, well, of course I like stars," whether it's because Usagi encounters freaks on a regular basis because of his job or because he just doesn't give a sh*t, he replies simply and casually. As if he wasn't being stared at by a mutant turtle with scars all over the face and body. Well, you can't see the scars on your body because you're wearing your, well, Donnie's hoodie, but. "Clear skies on the surface tonight. Probably a good night to look at the stars. "
( [... ] )
"Ha ha, why? You remind me of one. White dwarfs, man. I have no idea what the one in the Prison Dimension was called, but it's the same Sirius B. It still sometimes glows blue or teal in Hubble telescope pictures, you know?", you stare at him for a second and something changes in the way you talk. Without opening your mouth. Or that the rabbit (?) is no longer in the very spot you're looking at.
[... It disappeared, too. And then it came back. Quickly. Rapid. Deadly. You don't remember how many times it killed you.]
"Your order is ready," the rabbit was standing next to the cat who'd said that you specifically were f*cking weird. She had displeasure written all over her face, and you could smell the cigarette odor coming from her. Reminds you of New York. Wait, how long haven't you been in New York? What happened to it?
( [...] )
"Thank you so much, jeez, I'm so hungry. "
"Solidarity, gosh, it seems like it's been forever! "
"CJ! You can have half my portion if you want."
"Huh, uh, thanks, Cass..."
"Leo, here you go, isn't that your coffee or what is it anyway? Why does it smell like some kind of herbs? "
"Donnie, it's a spiced chai tea latte. He can't have coffee! It's the kind of drink based on milk and..."
You're suddenly aware of something going on around you. You've got people around you. You have your family around you. They're laughing and ridiculously jostling each other with their hands and elbows as they pass each one their order. You notice that there are still others in the restaurant. Here's a family consisting of a lizard, a praying mantis, and their baby (what is it anyway), seated at a neighboring table.
There's Hueso, reprimanding some sheep twice his height for mixing up the order. And the rabbit and the cat take turns putting the dishes on the table you ordered earlier. The shadows don't seem so strange and sharp. The faces seem to have features. Something is becoming clearer, if only for a moment. But it's going to be okay.
"Huh, em, bunny boy...," you don't seem to remember his name. Your gaze shifts to his nametag. 'Usagi. You'd name a star after him. That's funny.
"Yeah? " Usagi looks down at you superficially, his eyes slightly more open. A calm expression on his face, soft, maybe a little wary. You're still remembering how to read people and their emotions.
"Do you want to look at the stars sometime?", you only now realize that your head is just resting on the table and turned towards the hall and the waiter. You don't remember how or why you just picked up and put your head on the table, but it doesn't matter because Usagi looks a little puzzled for a second, and then he grins again (?).
"You're really weird," you laugh at that softly, squinting your eyes. The surface of the table is hard, not unpleasant. Weird. Haha, you and the table have a lot in common.
"Is that a yes?" you didn't notice the drink cup appear in front of your face, but you reach out to push it away a little. You still don't take your eyes off the halo of light that rings Yokai's silhouette.
"It's possible. Come back when you're not stoned or something." and the world goes quiet as the boy rabbit, Usagi, smiles and you can see the gap between his teeth. It's beautiful. And you nod (?) at his back lethargically.
([... It's beautiful. So beautiful that you'd be glad to die here and now so you don't feel the all-consuming pain. But maybe, just maybe, it wasn't death, it was life. You don't know. You don't...])
"Lee, this is your pizza, you need to eat.", Cass, usually loud, with a huge amount of emotion on her face in just one second, calmly slides a plate with two slices of Hawaiian pizza so that it bumps lightly against your elbows. Pizza without meat. No chicken or ham. Doesn't matter. It's delicious. Not what you're used to, but it's comfort. And you watch Cass, the way she controls your pizza eating. The way she calms down when you've eaten half a slice.
"You'll be fine, I promise you," CJ rests his head on Cass's shoulder as he says it, looking you in the eye. And in that, you see too much of a good thing for it to be real. Because part of your soul is still out there somewhere, in the Prison Dimension. And you think you're dead back then, because it's all too great to be true.
([... Your dreams aren't real. But what is a dream and what is reality. Will you ever be able to tell the difference? You have already deceived yourself. Maybe that's enough already.])
"Indeed, huh," Mikey, hitherto gripped by the squabble with Rafe and April over his honey and walnut pizza, switches to your quiet interjection. "You guys promise me this is all real, right? "
(You`ve voiced your order twice. That`s why the cat Yokai was annoyed. You are really f*cking weird, hah.)
You see the stupor in their eyes and the painful understanding. Raph, April, and Donnie seem to be paying attention to what you're saying. But you just laugh, and take another bite. "I mean, realistically, if that sh*t," you wave your slice of pizza slightly from side to side, "not real, then what's the point. I'm like, realistically, I'll be glad if it's real." You don't want to bury yourself even deeper, but what's the problem?
"Let this better be a dream, because, Galileo, my favorite and scientific, why the f*ck is someone putting cheese, tomatoes, and f*cking pineapples on bread, Nardo?" the table breaks into laughter and you're even able to laugh yourself.
Donnie casts a glance at you, and you're pretty sure you can feel static, pleasant disturbances colored purple that give off a pleasant ringing under your skin and warm your scales.
You find Mikey's hand in yours, take his palm and squeeze lightly, still feeling his slight tremor and the rough, diamond-shaped indentations in his skin that give off a golden, warm light. It calms you down, and you open your eyes again (?). You look down into your lap (?). Or, well, one of your knees. And you think.
It's okay, you're here. You're real. You're here. It's gonna be okay.
(... One more constant in life today.
...
... They love you, Leo. Stop asking stupid questions.
...
...
...)
And you think.
[... What color was the sky? It was black.]
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(Fixation amnesia is the loss of the ability to remember events.
...
...
...
...
... It was yesterday. You need to find a new word and remember its definition. Try again.)
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